CHOSEN (23 page)

“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 yourself 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.

“Maybe he’s wrong,” Maralt said, leaning against the stones and pulling his hood back. He looked at Dain’s sword, and the emeralds in its hilt, rubbing a finger over them. There was still a stain of red at the tip of the blade. Carryn realized it was Maralt’s blood.

“He isn’t wrong,” she said. “Some condition just hasn’t been met that could happen at any second with the three of them there together.”

“They took Dain by force,” Maralt said, and set the sword down, leaned up against the wall. He took the sapphire sword from her and set them together. He nodded. “He was supposed to go on his own. ”

“Dynan stayed of his own will,” she said to counter him.

Maralt smiled for a second. “He got away, Carryn. They had Dynan, but he escaped. Maybe that's enough to save us, at least for a time.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked knowing the odds of Dynan staying free weren’t very good. She felt they all stood at the precipice. One slip and they'd all go over the edge.

“I’m going to open the gateway again. And then I’m going to go get them out, Carryn. I don’t know that I can do it, but I have to try. There’s no way I’m trusting my life here, your life, or the rest of the world’s existence to the ability of an untrained, sixteen-year-old telepath. Strong enough or not. There’s no way.”

He turned to her, pulling her out of the doorway and put both arms around her. She knew what he was going to say next.

“But before I do that, there’s something I have to make sure of. I know you don’t want me to. I’m not going to take the memory of Alurn from you, even though the old man wants me to. In the end it’ll be taken from you, but not now, and not by me, but the other thing, you can’t keep.”