CHOSEN (8 page)

“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.

“Yes.”

“Will it change them?”

“A better question would be; will it change you, which is yes, probably, for a time at least. I don’t think it’s enough to change them, except to give them strength and us a better chance of seeing them through this.”

“All right,” Maralt said. The High Bishop approached with his hand held out, touching Maralt’s face with two fingers to his temple to teach him what to do. “I’m ready.”

~*~

Chapter 7

High Commander Gloik left the King’s office and Ambrose Telaerin smiled after him in case the Commander glanced back. He resisted the urge to flop into his chair, turning instead to look out at the rising sun as light painted the eastern horizon red. Even the gray sea rolled a shade of magenta.

“It’s going to snow again,” he said to the windowpane. There were mountains of the stuff already built up along the walks and roads. Winters in Rianamar were a thing of legend.

Ambrose rubbed his eyes to ease his weariness. He’d been up half the night dealing with a crisis that shouldn’t have been considered one. A Murian patrol ship crossed the boundary into Cobalt territory. The latest incursion was a case of a poorly trained pilot misreading his coordinates. Nothing more. A number of military commanders didn’t agree with his assessment, but in the end they did as Ambrose said. It was getting to that agreement that he sometimes found annoying. He didn’t have limitless power as King even though the covenant said he did.

The sound of someone’s thumping approach made him turn from the window. Roth Perquin, Brendin Moch and Melgan Lon hardly paused at the door before coming in.

“There’s a problem,” Brendin said, while Roth was communicating through his comboard, tapping the face of it in rapid succession.

Melgan tapped a comboard he held, his expression more dour than usual, and he reached across the black dreywood desk to synch the device with the comterm embedded in the surface. He touched a final control to complete the file transfer, set the comboard down, folded his arms and stood back.

The image of a detention cell flickered into view. White cushioned walls and white padded floors reflected light back to the imager and cast a glare across the screen before it was filtered out. For a moment they were looking at an empty room.

Ambrose was about to ask what this was all about, when he heard a low mutter, followed by a man coming into view. His hair was neatly combed. He wore clothes that were clean and well tailored. Magnetic cuffs bound his wrists and ankles, making it impossible for him to move at more than a shuffle.

“What is...” Ambrose started.

“The Demon Lord. The Demon Lord. The Demon Lord. He says...he says...he says...they have to die. The Twin Princes. They have to die. He says they have to die. He’ll drink their blood. The Demon Lord will rise. The darkness will come again.”

The man’s head jerked, his body twitching in an uncontrolled spasm. He turned to the imaging node that was in the upper corner of the room. He stared into it as though he knew Ambrose was there, listening while his sons were threatened.

“They have to die,” the man said. A chill crawled up Ambrose’s spine. He’d heard of the Demon Lord before, from his father, the day he died. “Dynan and Dain Telaerin have to die. They’re going to die. They’re going to die today.”

The image flickered to black.

“This morning there’ve been four other reports of this same threat, almost word for word,” Melgan said. The Captain glanced at Roth, who was finished with the comboard and shook his head at an unspoken question. “All of them have come from people who don’t have a history of any mental illness who are now just gibbering mad. One of them was up in the mountains with Dynan at the site where he fell.”

“What?”

Melgan nodded. “Ron Feldor. He's been on that project for years. Ever since Dynan found the place. At the moment, there’s no explanation for these delusions.”

“We’ve already sent out extra patrols,” Roth said.

Ambrose didn’t understand why patrols would be necessary since Dynan and Dain were upstairs asleep...

“The boys are missing,” Roth said.

“Missing?” Ambrose asked, a knot of fear centering in his stomach.