The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (10 page)

The crowd would erupt every time something
happened. And things happened all the time. Wren's head began to
ache, but she barely noticed it. The Graybeasts had to come out
soon, and just as things seemed to die down she got her wish.

The show was seemingly over, but the crowd
began to chant. Wren couldn't pick up the word at first but Jon and
her father were on their feet chanting it, too.

“Is it a Graybeast?” she asked excitedly to
no one in particular.

Then the massive animal made its way onto
the hard-packed dirt and the crowd went wild because right behind
it was another one, and another, and another. Four of the animals
walked holding each others' tails in their . . . noses? Wren wasn't
sure. Each one had a brightly colored blanket draped over its back,
each bearing the image of the Marshanti falcon.

The Graybeasts took commands from a man with
a gigantic whip; he cracked it once and they let go of each others'
tails and stood on their hind legs, their noses sticking straight
up in the air. They let out a massive sound that drowned out the
crowd.

The whip man cracked it twice and the
Graybeasts stomped back to the earth, shaking the ground and
sending ripples of dust out from underneath them. Wren's stomach
sank with the powerful shockwave. She would have to improvise.
There was no way she could harm these animals – she was actually
scared of them now that her initial wonderment had worn off. They
had long tusks, a lot like a boar, but absolutely huge and gleaming
white. One good stab from one of those and Wren would be going home
dead.

She was weakened and
demoralized. The rest of the show was a blur to her and as she made
her way out through the crowd she found she had to bolster
herself.
I won't fail. I'll do something
else. I've come all this way. I'll see this through.

Somehow.

T
he sun was just beginning to set as her father said, “Should
prolly head out and find a place to sleep.”

“Could stay in an inn in Marshanti, Cole,”
said Jon. “Ain't a long ride.”

“Need to be gettin' back,” her father said
with a strange look on his face. “City's just another huge
distraction.”

“Last I knew, you needed distracting.”

Jon was persisting awfully hard on this
point for some reason. Wren noticed an odd look to his eyes as
well.

Her father took off his hat and ran his
hands through his hair. “And I've had distractions,” he said. It
seemed like he was almost fighting with Jon. “Things'll be
different now.” Wren knew he was looking at her, but she wasn't
looking at him.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said,
gazing off into the distance.

“Well, let's get on the road and-”

“No,” said Wren, clenching her legs together
for emphasis.

“Saw some pit toilets dug around back
there,” Jon said, pointing. “Meet us back here, Wren, we won't
move.”

“Be careful,” her father yelled after
her.

Wren listened for the sounds of the animals,
straining hard in the boisterous crowd. She walked quickly through
the area trying to make a mental map of it so she could get back in
a timely manner. Was this just another plan that was going to
backfire? To her, at this point, it didn't really matter.

She followed a trail of hay that was coming
out of the back of the big tent and it led her right to where she
wanted to be. The place where they kept the animals was fenced off,
but she easily found a gap she could squeeze through. The whole
place was filled with crates and rope and hay and little tents with
blue and white patterns on them. But there were so many people.
This would be tough.

Wren took a deep breath and scampered behind
some crates, trying to keep herself hidden as she sneaked towards
the animal noises she now heard. Along the way she snagged a rusty
tent stake that was laying on the ground. She flipped it around in
her hand so she was holding it like a sword. It would have to do.
This was going to be a fast mission.

She continued her run, keeping to the
shadows that the setting sun was casting. As she wove her path,
keeping as far away from people as possible, it led her to the most
curious darkened corner.

The animal she found wasn't a Graybeast, but
rather the ape.

It was sitting in a pile of straw with
shackles around its wrists. The chains clanked as it shied away
from Wren, moving farther out into the light and away from the
shadows she was in. She couldn't get at it in the light and she had
already decided that this was the animal. It was now or never.

Ape from the Vapor, fruit
from the Vapor.

Wren took the orange fruit out of her pocket
and held it out, making a soft clicking noise with her tongue. The
tent stake was behind her back, gripped in a sweaty palm so tightly
that she could have sworn she was crushing the metal.

The brown-furred creature lumbered slowly up
to her and reached out its hand for the orange treat, but it
couldn't quite reach. Its shackles weren't long enough, and as Wren
stepped forward something about its wrists caught her attention.
Where the shackles were, the fur was rubbed away and there were
scars.

For a moment she forgot to breathe. The
scars were so much like those on her own arms, cut with sharp rocks
or bits of metal to release tension. Something clicked in her
brain.

These animals. The fox. The
mouse. The ape. I'm making them the victims, just like I am.
It was a relatively simple realization, but one
that shocked Wren thoroughly. She fell to her knees as the ape took
the orange and stuffed it, peel and all, into its mouth. It let out
a soft grunt and lightly shook its shackles.

Wren took the stake from behind her back and
looked at it, suddenly repulsed by what she had been meaning to do.
Not knowing why, she handed it to the ape. The ape gripped the tool
in its hand and bent to the ground.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

The shackles started to give way as the ape
hit them.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

The shadows began to fade around Wren and
for a moment she was baffled that the sun could be coming back up.
Wren searched for the source of the light.

It was coming from her.

A red and gold pattern was
burning on her forearm, shining out even through the long sleeve of
her shirt. She jumped back and tried to scrub at it with her hand,
but nothing happened.
Some kind of magic.
Some kind of curse.
She panicked as it
grew brighter. Red and gold lights danced around her.

The ape looked at her, the red and gold
lights reflecting in its eyes and flashing off its pupils.

“Flee.”

The voice came to Wren from nowhere,
colliding with her already shaken consciousness. It felt sickening
to her mind. She could barely understand the word, but there it
was.

“
Flee,”
it came again, hissing with a
gravelly sound. The voice was coming from the ape.

His shackles fell to the ground and he
leaped away.

Wren turned to run and she heard chaos
behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to watch the ape
destroying things; knocking over crates and barrels, pulling up
stakes, and uprooting smaller tents. Graybeasts and lions trumpeted
and roared, dogs and cats and birds ran and flew in all
directions.

These victims were free and so was Wren.

And so, with her world drenched in red and
gold, she ran, not knowing where she was going. Then there was a
blinding pain in the back of her head, and everything turned from
red and gold to black.

T
he cold couldn't quite pierce Otom's traveling clothes, and
he counted himself lucky that it wasn't the dead of winter. He was
getting a good view of Kilgaan as the ship approached it. The large
port city stood dark against the white snow and cloudy sky, looking
rather like an ink blotch on paper.

Otom had clung tightly to his meager
belongings as he'd silently bartered his way onto the boat.
Relatively few questions were asked of him. Most people understood
that most Monks didn't talk, and coin was a universal language. The
timing was impeccable: the ship had been leaving just as Otom had
arrived at the docks of Kilgane, out of breath from a ten minute
sprint.

The voyage had been rough after thirteen
years of not riding the sea, but he'd made it through with
relatively little vomiting.

The wind whipped harder and Otom drew his
brown robe tighter around himself. He had wrapped his forearm in
three layers of cloth which was what it had taken to cover the
light of his glowing symbol.

He had very little knowledge of what it
actually meant to be a Chosen. The glowing symbol was a calling
directly from God. Legends of Chosen were passed through the ages,
but Otom tended to be wary of all stories, as facts could twist
over the years. Each mouth that spoke a legend would add a new
verse from the corner of the speaker's mind. Maybe only bards and
minstrels had more of the truth of it. But maybe they had even
less.

There were writings in The Book, as Umden
had said, but they were as scattered and difficult to translate as
legends were. Sin'ra, though. That was the commonality.

He knew where the Temple was, generally.
North of Haroma in the Frost Mountains. It was a long range that
extended down into Hardeen Kingdom, and somewhere in its heights
the Temple of Sin'ra hunkered against the cold, thin air. Only the
most devout mages - Devotees and Monks chief among them - kept
their vigils there.

The boat eased its way home and Otom slung
his pack onto his back. He'd actually gotten luckier than he'd
thought with what he had grabbed. He had another robe and set of
clothes, his whip, his branch, various oils and tonics that the
Monks used for medicine, various scraps of fur and cloth, and his
copy of The Book: half his own writing and half holy scripture. All
these items were slung up in the bulging pack that he wore.

It was really all he
needed. Probably he
needed
even less.

The city pained him more
than he thought it would have. He saw that it had grown in size.
The docks from his past were almost twice as large.
Apparently the sea trade is picking up around
here.
Snow still covered everything, so
that hadn't changed. The buildings, trees, roads, and rocks were
frosted in white, and they would be for most of the year except for
a very few brief months in the summer. Smoke rose from myriad
chimneys.

As Otom made to get off the boat, the
captain stepped up to him.

“Right nice to have you on the ship with us,
Monk. I won't ask your name.” The captain chuckled at his own joke.
Otom smiled politely. “We all thank you for the Fire you've made.
That warmth was worth more than you'll ever know. I'd like ta give
ya back yer coins if ye'd take 'em.” The captain held out a handful
of tiny silver bits.

Clearly the man has
decency in him.

Otom held up his hand to deny the offer,
then traced a holy symbol in the air.

“It's all the same ta me,” the captain said,
pocketing the coins. “Be needin' a return trip?”

The question saddened Otom, but he shook his
head, waved politely, and set off into the town.

He had been to Kilgaan a few times in his
life. When he was younger, he had fought in a tournament here, and
that was the day he had met Allura Finny.

He made his way south along a thick main
road ignoring as much as he could, but the past kept hitting him.
He recognized a tavern he passed. The Frost Bear. Of course it
hadn't been called that fourteen years ago, but the building was
the same if a bit more worn.

Otom longed to see the place inside where he
had first seen Allura. She had chosen a booth facing the door as
she had liked to do.

T
he room buzzed with life as Otom sat alone at a table in the
corner. The smell of food wafting through the air just barely
covered up the smell of the patrons. Meat cooking on a spit dripped
its tasty liquids onto the flames below. Fires were always burning
up here in the north, especially in a place like The Fool's Heart
Tavern.

“You waitin' for someone?” said a blond girl
in the next booth. She was leaning over the top of the divider and
staring at Otom. She had flawless skin and her hair was a light
blond color that spoke of many hours in the sun. There was
something angelic about her that captivated him. She held a
blood-red drink in one hand and twisted at her hair with the other,
weaving the silky strands around slender fingers.

His eyes were drawn to her chest just before
he answered her, then he quickly darted his eyes up to her face,
hoping she hadn't noticed.

“Me? No. Not waitin' for anyone,” Otom
said.

“I like your colors,” she said smiling. “Are
those from the Isola region?”

“Yeah." Otom scratched his head
nonchalantly. He was still wearing his Skada from the activities
before the tournament. The uniform was purple with golden trim on
it. “You must know 'bout the tournament, then.”

“You could say that,” said the girl. “My
name's Allura Finny.”

“Pretty name.”

“Thanks! You're wearing tournament colors
and wrist wraps and that means you're a fighter. I love
fighters.”

“Yeah. I'm Otom Aldenburg.”

She popped out of view for
a second and then came around to stand at his booth. She wore fur
boots that came to her knees and a blue dress that fell just above
them. The material was very, very fine as far as Otom could
tell.
Some rich person's daughter,
maybe?
She would be alright in the warmth
of this tavern, but once she stepped outside into the freezing dusk
she'd have to bundle up.