CHOSEN (13 page)

“What?” Kamien said, seeing his reaction and Melgan shaking his head.

“This has nothing to do with—” Melgan started, but Ambrose cut him off. Melgan had been in the room too when Dionin died.

“It’s nothing, Kamien,” Ambrose said, his tone more abrupt than he intended. “Ghost stories. What about the men who did this?”

Ambrose could tell Kamien wanted to ask what he meant, but let it go to give the rest of the report. “There’s no sign of them. The city is locked down. We've started a door-to-door search for Dain. That will take some time. All but official transports or transfers are grounded until we say otherwise. You’re not telling me something.”

Ambrose nodded. “I can’t right now,” he said, leaning on his knees. He didn’t want to think about it. There were more pressing issues to deal with than a dying man’s gibbering last words.

A soft knock came at the door, and Geneal Elger entered. She was the daughter of the Palace Chief of Medicine, who’d told Ambrose at the age of four she wanted to be a heart surgeon. Sixteen years later, graduating two years ahead of schedule, she was already considered an expert in her chosen field.

She looked tired and worried, glancing around the room for a second before she said what Ambrose feared she would say.

“We have to put Dynan on full support.”

This might as well have been a precursor to her saying he was going to die. Support systems were used to prolong the inevitable almost always. Ambrose felt his throat clamp down and he tried to swallow.

“This is different,” she said, and came and sat with him. She pulled up a footstool, putting her hand gently on his, this child woman, trying to give him comfort when there was none. “This isn’t to delay death so you can have time to be ready for it. We need to do this to give Dynan’s heart the chance to repair and recover. The medicine is working, but it isn’t working fast enough to keep him alive.”

“For how long?”

“It won’t be permanent. At least, that’s not the intention. These are new techniques that are being put in practice, Your Majesty, and they are the only chance we have to save him. My father needs your permission.”

“He has it,” Ambrose said and then had to clear his throat when what came out was half a whisper. Geneal patted his hand again.

“Don’t give up. Dynan hasn’t,” she said and stood.

Ambrose didn’t respond except to glance at Brendin Moch, who would go with Geneal to act as witness. There were procedures that had to be followed because of who Dynan was, even in this. It was even possible that the succession committee would have to be informed, and their representative, the head of the committee, would end up here at City Medical asserting his influence, or attempting to, in what treatment he thought appropriate for the Crown Prince. Melgan, who wasn’t a diplomat, would very likely refuse Governor Alse entry to the building.

Ambrose couldn’t think about any of that now. He could hardly think at all, except to wage the constant battle to maintain his composure, listen to the doctors, and keep some shred of sanity intact.

Geneal left, and Brendin followed her, and a lengthy silence ensued. Melgan paced back and forth, the hauberk of chain mail clinking together as he moved. Hours went by and nothing seemed to change. Dynan fought to live. There was no news about Dain. His captors had vanished without a trace. Dynan was put on a full support system that breathed for him, and pushed blood through his veins.

Hours later, they let Ambrose in the room, after going through the sterilization dome that guarded his son’s life.

Dynan lay half under a sort of tent structure that covered his chest. They hadn’t bothered to close him back up and wouldn’t until they took the tubes out, or the morgue came for him.

The light in the room dimmed. Ambrose sat down heavily on the stool beside the bed. He’d seen death before, during the war at countless funeral services the King felt he should attend, when his uncle died, and then his own mother and father. He thought he was looking on it again in the gray face of his son. There were dark circles under his eyes.

“I know it looks bad,” Geneal said, and her father nodded in agreement. They were the only two in the room except for Melgan, who stood by the door looking at the monitors.

After a moment of watching, Melgan turned to Eldelar Elger and Geneal. “Don’t lie to him,” he said, bluntly suggesting that they were. “I’ll be out in the hall.”

The Captain closed the door softly behind him. Eldelar, who knew Melgan well, shook his head. “We’re not lying to you, Ambrose.”

“We’ve been here before,” he said, hardly able to say the words.

“This is different. This isn’t caused by war. This isn’t caused by old age or the inexplicable. I want to show you something. I want you to look at this, and be prepared to be shocked, Ambrose, but it’s working, and it’s the only chance we have.”

Eldelar gestured him to Geneal, who remained at a long counter that ran the length of the wall. Ambrose saw that there was a kind of container near at hand to her. There was liquid, a pale, diluted color of red, bubbling around something inside the box that Ambrose couldn’t make out. There were tubes attached to it. Periodically, Geneal glanced at a set of controls that rested on the counter beside the box.

Ambrose stood at Eldelar’s urging and as he moved closer, realized the thing inside was a heart, followed by the instant realization that it was Dynan’s heart.

“What—”

“When we put him on the support machine, his heart completely stopped functioning. The force of the machine couldn’t be reduced enough to prevent further damage. We bypassed the heart. The support is working. Dynan is alive. I want you to see what progress has been made. The first image is horrible, and will make you wonder how he survived at all.”

Eldelar waited a moment, allowing Ambrose to absorb that information before the doctor nodded. Geneal activated another monitor that showed Dynan lying with his chest cracked open, doctors with their hands inside his body trying to staunch the flow of blood. Ambrose stared, and the air left his lungs again.

Dynan’s heart was nearly shredded from the barbed dart. Eldelar was right. It seemed impossible that his son could have survived.

Ambrose looked back to the monitors above Dynan’s head, and noticed that his brain wave pattern wasn’t there. It was a line that didn’t move. Ambrose didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t ask, afraid to hear the answer.

“Look at his heart now. Look at your son’s remarkable heart.”

The fact that it was a whole heart took a moment to get through. Ambrose thought at first that the heart in this box wasn’t the same heart from his son. It couldn’t be, but then he noticed the almost finger like quality to the scars from the barb, even lines that cut across quivering muscle. Ambrose gasped at that. The heart was beating.

“How is that possible?”

“There’s an electrical impulse we’re sending through the liquid, to keep the muscle stimulated,” Geneal said. “It helps in the healing process. This liquid is infused with medicines that help accelerate that healing, and all the things the heart needs to be healthy. I think we’ll be able to re-insert in about three hours, maybe a little less.”

“He’s going to survive?” Ambrose said, still unable to believe it.

Eldelar didn’t want to say it either, hesitating with his answer. “We don’t know.”

“Yes,” Geneal said, smiling when her father looked at her in apparent dismay. “There are a lot of things that have to go our way, obviously. The procedure is dangerous. It’s difficult. Everything has to happen just so. The success rate isn’t what it ought to be, but in this case, yes. I think he’ll survive. I think this time in another week, he’ll be awake and wanting to get out of here. While we’re in this room with him, it’s a good idea to keep saying it, even if you may not believe it. Tell him he’ll be all right, Your Majesty, and keep telling him.”

“She’s young and ridiculously optimistic,” Eldelar said with a slight smile over his daughter’s head. “But in this case, hopefully, she’s right.”

Ambrose looked to his son’s heart quivering regularly, and back to the monitors and machines that regulated his life. This hope was so tenuous, he almost couldn’t bring himself to believe, but couldn’t face the alternative.

“I want to stay,” he said, moving back to the stool between the beds. “I want to be here for this procedure no matter what happens. I’m not leaving him alone again.”

“All right,” Eldelar said.

Ambrose nodded, turning back to his son. He took Dynan’s hand, wondering if he thought long and hard enough if he could wish his child well. He looked at him and thought he wasn’t so much a child anymore. Ambrose wanted to stop time, take it all back to the day he was born. He looked to the monitor, and the unmoving line, and feared it.

He leaned over Dynan, one hand smoothing over his hair, whispering, “Hold on, Dynan. A little while longer. Hold on.”

~*~

Chapter 12

Maralt dragged Dain inside the Temple only a moment before he woke up, returning to quiet consciousness. Quiet that lasted one moment only. Dain started thrashing against him, striking out in an attempt to escape. He started yelling at the top of his voice too, calling for help, for Palace Guards who wouldn’t come since there weren’t any, only attracting the attention of a few monks who came to see what the commotion was about. Luckily, the Temple was closed for worship, so there wasn’t any help there either.

“Would you shut up,” Maralt said.

Dain only planted his feet, got some leverage, and slammed Maralt back into the wall of the corridor they were on. He kept slamming him, to the point it was difficult not to reciprocate. Maralt held on, trying to ignore the out of control rage coming from Dain. The light around him was there, blazing as ever.

Abruptly, Dain froze, giving Maralt the chance to get a better grip on him, while he stared dumbstruck at the High Bishop.

“Let him go,” Gradyn said calmly.

“No,” Maralt said, and Dain struggled against him again, though with less effort than before. He was completely confused why the High Bishop would be involved, staring at him as if he weren’t real.

“He killed Dynan,” Dain said, and forced his arm free enough to elbow Maralt in the ribs. Keeping him still was impossible.

“He did no such thing,” Gradyn said, and that stopped Dain again.

“I know what I saw!”

“I know what you think you saw. If you want answers, if you want to help save your brother, you’ll stop struggling and listen. We need your help, Dain, and we don’t have time for delay. Now let him go.”

Maralt still wasn’t certain he should, but then he heard Carryn. She called out, her voice filled with alarm. Maralt stopped worrying about what Dain might do, and left him.

Carryn was down the next long corridor around the corner. She stood with both hands out, her full weight leaning forward, palms flat, pressed into an impenetrable wall of advancing black. It was a consuming darkness that she wasn’t able to stop. It seemed even, if she stood there much longer the darkness would swallow her.

Maralt stared back at the High Bishop for confirmation of what he already knew. Gradyn was talking to Dain, trying to explain why he was there, and what he was needed for. Dain wasn’t inclined to listen. Gradyn cast Maralt a nodding glance.

The darkness came from the Room of Orbs. Dynan Telaerin and his forefather were on the wrong side of that wall at the same time together, setting up an imbalance that allowed the Orbs, the Six Manifestations, access to this world, maybe permanently. If no one was there to stop them.

Maralt swore at the thought, hesitating between going to Carryn or back for Dain, aware that he was out of time. He swore again, a term hardly appropriate to use in front of the High Bishop. When Maralt went to Dain, he tried to jerk away. Maralt grabbed him though, avoided a wild swing and then dragged him to the corner so he could see. The sight of all that black coming at them finally stopped him.

“Your brother is on the other side of that. If it reaches the Sacred Seal, the living seal, he’ll never get out again. Do you believe in Hell, Dain? If you don’t help us, Dynan is dead, and his afterlife won’t be like anything you’ve ever been told about, and well, neither will yours.”

Maralt shoved him back, putting some space between them in case Dain thought to come at him again. Maralt was far more concerned now with helping Carryn, who was sliding backward, her shoulder into the dark wall.

“Maralt, no,” Gradyn said. “Show Dain what to do and then come to the Temple.”

With that, Gradyn turned and left them.

“Who are you people?” Dain asked, backing away when Maralt moved toward him.

“Guardians of the Word,” Maralt said, knowing how little that explained.

“What? What word?”

“True ones,” Maralt said. “Are you going to help, or not?”

For the first time, the anger in Dain’s eyes lessened while uncertainty took its place. There was doubt he’d be able to face this, and fear and grief for his brother.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Evil,” Maralt said when that was too simple an answer. “You’ll know when you touch it. Now, be still. There’s something I have to do.”

“What?” he asked, unwilling to take anything Maralt said uncontested.

“I have to give you something.”

Maralt wished he’d shut up for once, and do what he was told. The constant light and the desire to take it set Maralt on edge. He found himself holding his breath to avoid it. The evil nature of the talon was there, too, working against him, and he tried to ignore it.

“Give me what?”

“Me,” Maralt said. He put his hand to Dain’s head, two fingers to the side of his face even as Dain reared away from him. Maralt followed, commanding him to be still while he concentrated on implanting the small seed of strength and will Dain would need to fight this thing. Maralt wondered if a little wisdom might help too. Dain fought him, but it didn’t matter and then it was done.