CHOSEN (2 page)

“Not that I mind you being confined to your rooms,” Colin said. “It’s way easier on me. Just tell him you’re sorry.”

“I already did.” More than once, Dynan thought, and it wasn’t working. Sometimes, nothing did.

“Then tell him again. As many times as it takes until he gets over it. Preferably before your brother decides to go off and do something equally stupid as stealing and then crashing a transport pod.”

Dynan was careful not to look at him this time, concentrating on the work at hand. Colin might read in his face that plans were already brewing.

“I know you’ve heard it before,” Colin said. “Just saying, is all. It can’t hurt.”

Colin straightened and Dynan kept working.

He tugged his fur glove from his hand to get a better grip, and managed to dislodge a large chunk of frozen soil from the metal. A line of embossed diamonds appeared, similar to his family crest, and made him wonder if this was an early location of his ancestral home, perhaps built by the First King of Cobalt. Someone built the place, though why they thought this mountainside a good spot to locate was beyond him. Dynan blew on his fingers. It was cold, down to the bone, stinging exposed skin cold.

The unexpected smell of charred wood wafted through the air. Dynan frowned over it while he picked away more dirt, glancing around to see if there was smoke somewhere or a fire to go with it. He ended up running his finger into an unnoticed sharp edge that sliced into his skin.

He jumped a little as an immediate flow of blood splattered on the rock. Another drop followed and another, hitting the stone in expanding bright red circles.

A deep rumble lifted toward him while he sucked the blood off his finger. The tiny bits of dirt he’d loosened bounced off the rock from the vibration. The idea occurred that a ground shift was happening, and Dynan looked up to check on the others in the archeology group.

The rumble grew louder, and everyone around him stood cautiously in their sections of the ruins, peering nervously around and waiting to see what was going to happen. The slope of the land they were on went up to a wall of rock. Colin looked to the cliff.

The sound like a roar of a lion came from the ground. Dynan expected to see a hole open up right under him it was so loud and close.

Something odd happened then, that had no explanation at all. The red droplets of his blood vanished into the stone. Dynan stared at the spot, a question mark forming in his mind. He must have imagined it, but another drop fell from his still bleeding finger and seeped into the rock as if it were a sponge.

“Wow. Okay, that is not normal,” he said, rubbing the stone that should have been red. “It’s not possible either. Colin, did you—”

A large boulder tumbled off the face of the cliff. Dynan looked to his guard to see if he noticed the disappearing blood, but Colin was watching the boulder – just before he reached down, yanked Dynan to his feet by a fistful of his coat, and pulled him around away from the cliff. The boulder hit the ground and exploded.

The arms of the guard went around him, vice like and inescapable. Colin braced himself, bending over Dynan to protect him. Shards of rock whizzed by. Dynan wasn’t hit by any of them, but he felt the guard jump.

“Colin?” Dynan asked. The rumbling kept on and didn’t seem like it was going to end.

“I’m all right.”

“We have to move!”

“We can’t. The ground is unstable.”

To prove it, the ground shuddered underfoot as if it heard him, heaving in some places and by the sound of it, more boulders were on the way. Colin looked over his shoulder. Evidently, he changed his mind about moving. He pushed Dynan a few steps and then a few more before once again becoming a human shield. Another boulder slammed into the ground.

This time, the bits that zoomed by were hand-sized.

Finally, after a long time to be glued to his guard’s chest, the shaking eased and then stopped completely. Colin loosened the hold he had slowly, and Dynan straightened, turning to make sure the guard wasn’t hurt.

“I’m fine,” Colin said, smiling at Dynan’s concern, but he winced. “Maybe a few bruises, is all. You weren’t hit, were you?”

Dynan shook his head. “Not a scratch, well except for my finger.” The sliced bit was smeared by blood. If he pressed on it, more came out, but slower than before. “Did you see it? The rock soaked up the drops.”

“See what? No.” Colin turned to look back at the cleared patch of ground Dynan had been working on. “Sure you didn’t imagine that one?”

Before Dynan could answer no, the two leads on the dig came rushing across the slope, trying to run through deep snow to little effect, except to look funny. There were paths cut through that they weren’t taking. One of them had a strange, almost maniacal grin on his face as he rushed forward.

“What’s wrong with him?” Colin said under his breath.

“Your Highness, Lieutenant, are you all right?”

Dynan left Colin to answer and thought to go back to his work site to collect his tools and the glove he left on the ground. After all that shaking and danger, he knew he’d have to leave even before his father arrived. They were probably calling off his visit right now. Dynan tried to remember when there’d ever been a shifting in this area and couldn’t.

He thought to ask, but stumbled over uneven ground or his own feet and fell. Not backward, but straight down. He threw his arms out, a reflex that didn’t do anything to stop the sudden descent, except to throw him backward. He expected the ground to catch him, but he realized in a flash as the sensation of falling continued, that there was no ground. There was a hole.

It occurred to him as he went down that he ought to be more careful what he wished for.

The air whistled past him, freezing his breath. He kept expecting to hit the bottom at any moment. It was black as pitch with nothing around him. No walls to try and grab hold of. Nothing to slow him down. More moments ticked by. He knew if he didn’t stop falling soon, landing would kill him.

“Dynan?” Dain’s presence reached him and fear made Dynan grab hold of the only thing available to him, bringing Dain with him. “What the hell?”

Dynan meant to go to him. He was capable of it. Mentally leaving his body to join his brother was almost second nature. They were telepaths so it was easy. They even traded places on occasion, but Dynan didn’t want that. He just wanted to get out of himself before he ended up broken to bits at the foot of a dark pit. He wasn’t completely sure how to do it without the other thing happening, and maybe killing Dain instead.

“Dynan, just take my hand,” Dain said. “I’ll get us both out. Take my hand.”

But Dynan hesitated and then he struck.

***

A high-pitched whine filtered through the constant repetition of his name, both in his head and from above. The ability to breathe returned in gasping increments and with air filling his lungs, the realization came he was alive. It didn’t feel so good, but the alternative was worse. Right then, Dynan was happy to feel anything.

He blinked his eyes open, and after they cleared, he saw Colin leaning into the hole, looking down at him.

“I’m all right,” Dynan said to the guard, only the words didn’t come out very loud. “I think I’m all right.”

Dain was there too, only in Dynan’s head, looking out through his eyes at the distant opening. The hole had opened close to a wall, so it didn't seem like more of it would give way. “What happened?”

Dynan couldn’t answer. He tentatively wriggled a few fingers. He raised his arm and nothing screamed at him. It didn’t feel like anything was broken. He couldn’t see near at hand at all though, but then remembered he had a lamp box on his belt.

“Pop is landing,” Dain told him and Dynan could hear the sound of the transport coming in. “And he’s freaking out.”

“Just tell them to drop down a rope,” Dynan said, and lifted his other arm, and then both at the same time. The light box was still clipped to his belt and undamaged. It was an amazing relief when it came on, giving him a little square of light against the inky darkness.

“Dynan!”

He couldn’t yell an answer back, so he flashed the light at the opening that now had his father looking down. For a moment, his younger sister peered down too, blonde hair cascading down around her face. She was about to turn eleven in a few months. Dynan hadn’t known Shalis was with their father.

“Oh that’s a long way,” she said, looking worried, and then someone pulled her back from the opening.

“Tell them I’m all right.”

“I already did,” Dain said. “Pop has to read it though. I’ll message Colin instead. Can you stand?”

“Maybe,” Dynan said and then thought he should probably try. He moved his legs around first and then rolled to his side. He found out what hurt then.

“Your back? You land on it? How far down are you anyway?”

“Twenty, thirty kem. I don’t know.” Dynan groaned as he moved, guessing that every muscle in his back was pulled or bruised.

“On the bright side, maybe you’ll get out of the ceremony tomorrow,” Dain said.

“Nothing shy of death, he said the other day, so I doubt it.” Dynan had already hinted as directly as he dared that he didn’t want to go through with it. His father didn’t pay attention to that, being far too concerned with what a cancellation would look like and what an inconvenience it would be to the invitees if the ceremony didn’t happen.

“I’d say this counts.”

Dynan made it up to hands and knees. His back still hurt, but it was less than before. His head hurt too and there was a knot growing at the base of his skull. He touched the lump as part of the inspection and found out he shouldn’t.

There were large stones from the collapse littering the ground he could have landed and died on. A sense of euphoria swept over him. He hadn’t broken anything or damaged any internals. Of course, he wasn’t completely sure about that yet. He tasted blood in his mouth.

“Great.”

Dynan turned the lamp on his surroundings. It was a cavern he landed in, made by man, not nature and the light barely cut the darkness. He sat back on his legs, testing what hurt and how much. He spit the blood out - it felt like he bit his tongue.

Right where he spit, the ground bulged upward as if it was boiling water. For a second he thought it was some sort of flowing liquid. Another rumble erupted all around him. Dust and dirt rained down with clumps of snow from the hole above. After back-peddling away, something between curiosity and revulsion drew him back.

“Now you’re just being stupid,” Dain said.

Dynan looked over his left shoulder where Dain stood, blond, blue-eyed and smirking as usual. With the ability to communicate telepathically, there came this visual projection. No one else could see him, of course, but for Dynan there was a physical sense that Dain was right there, one hand on his shoulder.

The rumbling eased, changing to a more distant, safer crack of rock against rock, but the ground kept puking dirt. A rope whistled down near at hand, a few coils thudding to the ground. When it started twirling around, Dynan knew Colin was on the way, but looking up wasn’t yet an option.

There was something on the ground anyway, more compelling than the guard’s descent. A black claw, regurgitated from within, lay on top of the dirt. It rolled along with the brown river as if pushed by an invisible force until it was in front of Dynan where he knelt.

“Okay, that’s just weird,” Dain said. “Seriously, don’t pick that up.”

The smell of charred wood filled Dynan’s nostrils - the same smell from just before he cut his finger. Something else about the talon reeked, more a feeling than an odor. It came as a sensation, too hard to define, that sent a shiver of warning through him.

This was a mystery he couldn’t resist. Dynan picked up the talon.

The black claw was almost as long as his hand, and curved to a sharp point. A ridge ran on either side. It didn’t belong here, whatever it came off of. There wasn’t a history of large animals of the kind that would own something of this size. Not on any of Cobalt’s three planets. Not anywhere in the six Realms that made up Brittallia even. The black gleamed dully in the weak light.

A flash of thought entered his mind neither his nor Dain’s, whispering that this was why he was here. Finding it was why he’d come on the expedition to the mountain ruins. It was why he’d cut his finger. Why the ground had opened and dropped him here. It was in the world now and having it would change everything.

“What?” Dain demanded in a voice full of uncertainty, even bordering on fear. “Did you hear that? Who’s here?”

“No one,” Dynan said, turning the talon over in his hand.

Colin landed then, and reached for him, but Dain moved in, taking over.

“You need to get him out of here,” Dain said, speaking through Dynan and confusing the guard. “Right now. Don’t wait for them to decide how it’s to be done.”

Colin pondered for a moment, looking at Dynan closer. “Dain?”

“Right now, Colin,” Dain said. “Get him out of here.”

“You know it’s really creepy when you do this? Right? And you're not supposed to. No, don’t go on. I know. I’ll get him out, but I have to tell them up top—”

“I already did,” Dain said, but then Dynan managed to reassert himself and push Dain out. “Colin, I’m all right. Dain is a little spooked is all.”

“I gathered,” Colin said, but he held up a hand while he read from the comboard. “He’s not alone in that. Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

“Come on then. Are you hurt? Dain says no on the comboard, but I thought I’d ask you.”

“Just get him out of here, will you?”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Dain. I’d like to hear it from your brother, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m all right,” Dynan said when Dain eased off.

Colin nodded and helped him up, looking at the talon Dynan still held with curiosity, but then he was hooking him onto the rope using an extra belt and clip.

“Hold onto the rope and hold onto me,” the guard said, winding a few coils around his arm after he’d clipped onto a different spot.

“How are they going to pull us both up?” Dynan asked, tucking the talon into a pocket before taking a section of the line and gripping the guard by the shoulders. It hurt to move that much.