by Michael Mood
“Tellurian!” Halimaldie shouted. “What the hell have you done?!”
“Only what I felt was right,” Tellurian responded. He winced. “What did you do to my head?”
“You think this is right?!” shouted Halimaldie, ignoring the other comment. He indicated the slaughter which was going on in the room.
“It has its purpose.”
“I looked up to you,Tellurian! I looked up to you! Do you know how hard that is for me to admit? Please. Please don't let this be true.”
“It is truth. Cut my throat or join me. No one will leave this place alive if you don't choose one of those options.”
“Your money funded hospitals that saved lives!”
“My money built me undisturbed breeding pits. Hopefully Haroma is overrun as we speak.”
“Why did you do this? Why?”
“Kill him, D'Arvenant,” said a voice to his left. It was Angloriel.
“Shut up, Kingsguardian! Why, Tellurian? Why!”
“You don't remember when we were growing up. Halimaldie: the one who always knew what to do. Knew how to succeed. People liked you, Hal.”
“Don't let this be about petty childhood bullshit, Tell! This is treason!”
Tellurian shook his head. The silver dagger cut him and he winced. “You'll never understand, Hal, because you've always had power. Not everyone's like you. This was my power. These were my operations. I was promised the world for my part. Sometimes things don't work out. So now, kill me or join me.” He was silent for a moment, then his face contorted. “KILL ME OR JOIN-”
A sword stabbed into Tellurian's chest, cutting off any further words.
Halimaldie followed the sword up the arm to Angloriel. He swallowed hard, suddenly weak as a kitten.
“He was my brother,” Halimaldie said.
“I am sorry, D'Arvenant.”
“And I as well,” Krothair said.
Tellurian slumped down the wall, red blood marking his path down the stone.
Halimaldie's voice was a whisper. “And I truly did love him.”
Chapter 36 – Written in the Tome
-1-
Wren's eyes fluttered open in the silence.
She lifted her head and found her neck to be incredibly sore. The slash across her chest was pulling, threatening to break open again.
“Shh,” Heather said. The old woman was leaning over Wren, working her hands above her.
“Is it over?” Wren asked.
“It's over.”
“Tessa and Crasher?”
“They're resting,” Heather said. She pointed at the bear and the mouse.
“Thank God,” said Wren. “They're alive.” She could feel their presences now. She tried to put her hands on her stomach. “My baby!”
“All is well, Wren. You must hold still. I'm almost done.”
Some kind of cool magic passed over Wren, tingling her skin as it worked from head to toe.
She sat up as Heather slumped to the floor, exhausted. “That kind of Healing can really take a lot of out you,” she said quietly.
Wren looked around. Krothair, Angloriel, and Otom were all nursing wounds, and Halimaldie, though seemingly unscathed, sat in a corner, his legs drawn up tight to his chest, his face haunted. Domma was leaning against Otom's back. It looked at if she might have been weeping, but Wren wasn't sure.
The white foal limped up to Wren and started licking her face.
The room was littered with Foglin corpses. The floor was covered with their black, oozing, blood.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Has this whole journey been for nothing?”
“I'm not sure,” said Heather. “For now we recover, my child.”
Wren looked around her at everyone who had a glowing forearm symbol. Everyone's pulsed with the same rhythm.
Raven walked into the room carrying a large tome in her hands. She was struggling under its weight, taking crooked steps. Wren couldn't tell if the girl was wounded or just weak.
“What have you got there, girl?” Angloriel asked, struggling to his feet.
“Found it in a side room,” she said between heavy breaths. “You people really should look around more. Haven't any of you got a sense of curiosity?”
“It's been a little difficult,” Halimaldie said, darkly. “What with surviving and all.”
Raven set – more like dropped – the book down in a clear area of stone. “There was a dead guy with it too,” she said. “Had a quill in his hand and everything. Very dedicated writer.”
“Maybe we'd better not mess with such artifacts,” Heather suggested.
Raven paid no heed and flipped open the cover of the tome, which was easily the size of her torso. She flipped through the first few pages. “Terrible handwriting,” she decreed. “Who can read this script?”
“Let me see it,” Domma said.
“Allura, wait,” Otom said. It was the first words Wren had heard him say. His voice was a whisper.
“Otom! You're talking!” Raven gasped.
“It will be alright,” Domma – Allura, apparently – responded to him.
Allura bent over the book and began to read, tracing the lines with her finger. Krothair was checking the bandage on his bloody arm. Halimaldie stood up and began walking over to the tome slowly.
“It seems to be . . . some sort of transcription,” Allura said. “A great portion of it is incoherent babble.” She flipped some of the pages. “Looks to be split into five sections . . .”
“Well, there's five of us with marks,” Krothair said.
“Would seem to make sense,” Allura agreed. “I think I can read it, but it might be slow going at first. This is really something that belongs in the Bibliofero at Haroma . . .”
“If you think we can carry that heavy-ass book back to the city, be my guest,” said Raven.
“I could carry it,” Krothair offered.
“Aye,” said Angloriel.
“Otom could carry it,” Raven said. “He's huge!”
“Quiet,” Allura warned. “We'll worry about that later. I shouldn't have even said anything. There's a symbol on this page that looks like yours.” Allura was indicating Wren.
“Me?” the girl squeaked.
“Yes. Shall I read what is written under it?”
Wren's heart pounded and she felt dizzy. But there was the vine and thorns at the top of the page, just like the symbol on her arm. “Yes,” she said.
“To the Chosen Protector,” Allura began. “If you are to undertake the next part of your quest, you must grow in knowledge and power. Your path leads you far, to new soil. Near the town of Benshar, there is nature's work to be done. Take the blade you possess, for brandishing it in the right people's presence will allow access to the inner workings of a corrupted place. You will have to pose as something you are not, in order to do what is right.”
“Benshar is in western Shailand,” Angloriel said. “Why would this book send you into enemy territory?”
“War's over, Kingsguardian,” Allura said.
“I'm actually from near there anyway,” Wren said timidly. “But . . . who is ordering this?”
“I guess it would be God."
“Oh, I'm so sick of him,” Halimaldie said. “Get to my part would ya? I now have no idea who's been running my empire. It sure hasn't been my brother.” He coughed and breathed out. “I have to get back if we're almost done here.”
Allura flipped through the pages, coming upon the one with the coin at the top.
“To the Chosen Benefactor,” Allura read. “Your task is the simplest and toughest at the same time. Since the beginning of time, men of power have tried to harness the world. Always grasping for more and more. You will need great power in the future. Therefore, you must find worthy causes and donate everything that you own to them. Your entire fortune must be split up and-”
“You can stop right there,” Halimaldie said, cutting her off. “I don't mean to seem difficult here, but I did just watch my bro
ther die. Now a book, written by a dead guy, is telling me to give up the only things I have left in my life.”
“You have to do what it says,” Krothair protested.
“No I fucking well do not, kid,” Halimaldie said. “It's insanity. This is all insanity. You know I almost started to trust all of this shit.”
“You can't run from this. You can't scrub your mark away,” Wren said timidly. “I've tried.”
“I'm going back to Haroma.”
“Just when we're getting so close to the answers?” Otom whispered.
“I have a lot of patience. But this is it, fellow glowing friends. We're being had. Doing the bidding of some invisible force we don't understand. It's great to pretend. It's great to think we're a part of something bigger. It's been a cargo hold of laughs. But I'm done with it now.” He turned to leave.
“Please don't go, Hal,” Allura said.
But it didn't make a difference. Halimaldie walked through the large main door, his glowing symbol fading into the trees.
There was silence for a long time.
“Read mine,” Otom whispered. “If this is truly a divine plan, I will trust it. God has been good to me lately.” He smiled at Allura.
Allura thumbed through the book until she found the page that had the fish at the top.
“To the Chosen Monk,” she said, her voice wavering. “You have sacrificed much to get here. But now I will ask a greater task of you than has ever been asked before. In order for your power to grow, you must sacrifice the most difficult thing in the world. Your . . . love.” Allura stumbled over the last word.
“What?” Otom whispered. He stood up.
“You are not to be with the Chosen Devotee,” Allura continued, her voice shaken. “Your paths must diverge. You will go with the Chosen Protector, as you are in possession of something that will aid her quest.”
Wren looked at Otom. His face was despondent as he looked back at her. She thought she could see tears welling in his eyes.
“Oh, Wren!” exclaimed Raven. “We're going to be the best of friends!” The woman came over and put her arm around Wren, squeezing with an annoying tightness.
“Perhaps Halimaldie was right,” Otom said. “Perhaps we should abandon this quest right now.”
“No,” Allura said. She breathed out. “Have faith, Otom. Fate brought us together once, it will bring us together again. If we are faithful. I made a promise that I would be.”
Otom stood silent for a moment, looking every inch a pillar of strength. But Wren could tell he was devastated on the inside.
“Where are you to go, then?” Otom asked Allura, his throat tight, his voice still a whisper.
Allura paged through the book until she came upon the page with a picture of the sun in the sky.
“To the Chosen Devotee. The island nation of Trirene has ever lacked faith in me and my miracles. Their inner workings are mostly beyond my sight. Bring me there. Their powers must not be wasted in the conflict to come.”
“Missionary work,” Otom said flatly. “Across the sea.”
“It would seem so."
“I'll take care of Otom,” Raven offered.
Allura shook her head. “I don't know how I feel about that.”
Raven looked confused and then backed away from Allura a little bit.
“Read mine,” Krothair said. The boy looked nervous, but anxious.
Allura flipped again, finding the page with the broken sword symbol sketched on it.
“To the Chosen Servitor,” she read. “You are to train in the ways of the Servitor, in the paths of many of the greatest Kingsguardians, but you will not train in the city of Haroma. You will turn yourself over to the Royal Force of Marshanti. Your training will be completed by those which you have never known, in a city you have never seen.”
Krothair listened to his quest with a blank look on his face. He sighed.
“The Royal Force,” Angloriel said. “What a bunch of fuckin' pussies. It should be our duty to train young Krothair. Oh, King Maxton will not like this in the least. I think this tome plays games with us.”
“I cannot say what it does or does not do,” Allura said. “All I can urge, as a Cleric of the Sunburst Temple, is that we trust it. No matter what you believe, events have led us all together for a reason.”
“But now we are only four of five,” Krothair noted.
“Halimaldie will come back to us,” Allura said. “Like Wren pointed out, he can't escape his fate any more than the rest of us can. No matter . . . no matter how much he may wish to.”
“What is the point of all this?” Wren asked. “There's no reasons given.”
“We must grow in power to be able to complete some task,” Allura said, shrugging. “I have questioned God and flown in his face too many times during my life. I am not about to rekindle my old habits. I will go to Trirene and establish his word and his teachings there. I hope, along the way, things will become clearer to me. But until then, I suggest we go our separate ways, safe in the knowledge that there are mighty hands at work here.”
“This is gonna make one hell of a story,” Raven said.
“If we live to tell it,” Otom whispered.
The colt came and nuzzled Wren's hand, and she stroked its foreheads, feeling the nodule that grew there.
The great hall was silent as Allura slowly closed the heavy lid of the tome.
Continued in Book 2 . . .
For more novels and more information visit: www.michaelmood.com/novels
Acknowledgments:
Thank you to my beta readers: Bryan Early, Eric Schooff, Jim Igielski, Megan Kehl, Adam Stapleton, Jenni Mood, Marsha Mood, Alan Mood, Jeff Ingebritsen, Callie Ingebritsen, Evan Riley, Becky Riley, Sara Zanton, and Jenna Mood.
169
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 – A Fox in a Trap
Chapter 2 – A Man of Few Words
Chapter 3 – A Woman of Faith and Scars
Chapter 4 – The Orphan Savant
Chapter 5 – The Lonely Ship
Chapter 6 – An Ape in Chains
Chapter 7 – The Tournament
Chapter 8 – Murder
Chapter 9 – The Thief
Chapter 10 – Three Visitors
Chapter 11 – A Mouse in the Cellar
Chapter 12 – The Hunt
Chapter 13 – By Candlelight
Chapter 14 – Devotees and Servitors
Chapter 15 – Protectors
Chapter 16 – A Bird in Flight
Chapter 17 – Life With Allura
Chapter 18 – Potter
Chapter 19 – The Skull and The Sword
Chapter 20 – With Abandon
Chapter 21 – Wren at the Dryad Tree
Chapter 22 – Otom at the Dryad Tree
Chapter 23 – Lofty Goals
Chapter 24 – To Save a Life
Chapter 25 – In Depths and Darkness
Chapter 26 – Alone and Traveling
Chapter 27 – New Legs
Chapter 28 – Of Songs and Legends
Chapter 29 – The Black and White Rescue
Chapter 30 – Reinforcements
Chapter 31 – It Begins and Ends
Chapter 32 – Of Love and Power
Chapter 33 – Memories
Chapter 34 – Living Weapons
Chapter 35 – Brothers
Chapter 36 – Written in the Tome