The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (13 page)

“I am . . . struggling with these beliefs.”
She was agitated still.

“We all do. That is why God
hides his shop away. He doesn't want people to find it unless
they
really
like
bread.”

Muriel smirked at this. “Once everyone finds
it, Gustus's business will dry up completely. I would feel bad for
him.”

“As would God,” said Domma.
“Correction. As
does
God.”

“I haven't been coming to the Temple long,”
Muriel said. “Only the past few weeks or so. My son . . . was taken
from me about a year ago . . . and I needed something. I was hoping
that this could be it.”

Domma nodded. “I am sorry. It is sometimes
impossible to explain why certain things happen, no matter how
deeply we believe. We can usually look only for solace. It is rare
that we find explanations.”

Muriel nodded slowly and sadly. “The story
of Gustus, well, I'd heard of it. But to banish your own son . . .
it struck a chord with me and I don't understand how God could . .
.”

“He is not a mother,” Domma said, laying her
hand on Muriel's. It was the first wrong move she had made in a
long time.

“Neither are you, Cleric,” Muriel said. The
woman stood up and walked away. She turned her head just before she
left. “And I have to say that I don't much care to follow a deity
who would treat his family like that.” Then she exited without
closing the door.

Domma sat thinking.
Muriel has some sort of point. I will have to
think on it.

While she sat, debating whether or not to
start her sermon off on a note that would address what Muriel had
said, another Cleric walked in.

Her name was Metta. She was young and new to
the Temple. She had beautiful blond hair that Domma was jealous of.
The rest of Metta was rather unremarkable, but that hair shone when
the sun hit it.

“Metta.”

“Domma,” she said in her light way. Her lips
were pursed as if she were troubled. “Are you busy?”

Domma glanced down at the parchment she had
started writing on. So far she had written just one sentence, but
she supposed that was her start. “Nothing that can't wait.”

“They need you down at the fourth district
hospital.”

“Need me? Usually that's a voluntary thing.”
Something was amiss. She Delved Metta, but nothing she gleaned was
useful.

“Someone named Ormon Stipson is dead,” Metta
said. “Murdered. A Warden came to the Temple to try and give you
the message while you were in mass.”

Domma stood up slowly. Sadness rang through
her. “It could be suicide,” she said. “Sometimes these patients
talk to me about it. Ormon didn't specifically, but . . .”

Metta shook her head and her blond hair –
which was always to be tied back during prayer and holy hours –
bounced from side to side. “Not the way they found him, I guess.
Doesn't look like it, anyway.”

Domma grabbed her holy symbol from the wall
– a replica of God's shield inset with tiny gems – and put it
around her neck. She didn't always wear it, but in times like this
it gave her courage and made her feel safe. “I'm on my way,” she
said. “Which Warden told you of this?”

“Warden Funary, I think he said his name
was. I didn't really recognize him. I think he's relatively new to
that hospital.”

“Alright,” Domma said. “Pray for Ormon and
myself. We will both, I think, need it.”

“I will,” Metta said.

Domma ran out of her room, through the giant
doors of the Temple, and out into the hot and humid day.

O
rmon's arms and legs were chained to the four corners of his
bed and most of his head was gone. A good portion of his skull was
simply missing. The place where his head injury had been didn't
even really exist anymore. Brains had leaked out the side and been
smeared on the filthy bed. There was blood everywhere.

“Could be an axe wound,” Warden Funary said.
He was pacing nervously back and forth. He was obviously made of
tougher stuff than Domma, for she had already vomited twice: once
just after she had entered the room and once again after she had
removed the sheet that had covered Ormon's body.

“Didn't you hear him screaming?” Domma
asked. “God's Shield, Funary, someone chained him up and hacked his
head apart.” She winced at her own words.

“He was chained for his own safety before
this all happened,” Funary said. “I did it myself. He was having
fits, Domma. My quarters are far from Ormon's and this straw on the
walls absorbs sound. Honestly it's one of the reasons we put it
there in the first place. Men like this can pitch a fit at all
hours of the night.”

“Shouldn't you want to attend them,
then?”

"If we attended to everyone who was pitching
a fit we'd get no sleep, Cleric. You must understand this."

Warden Potter burst into the room. “My God!
Ormon!” He clapped his hand to his mouth, his eyes wide. “I came as
soon as I heard! Funary, what happened here!?”

“I don't know,” the newer Warden moaned.

“And on your watch?” Potter said. “You need
to leave this room. Your first week has not been kind to you.”
Potter was wringing his hands. “Go home for the evening. I will do
what I can here.”

Funary backed slowly out the door.

Probably his first and last
week,
Domma thought.

“I never asked for help here,” Potter said.
“Not once. But they sent me that idiot who can't keep my patients
from being murdered!” He was angrier than Domma had ever seen him,
a fire radiating from his eyes.

“We need to bring the Guard in on this
before it happens again, Potter.”

Potter scoffed at the idea. “These people
aren't even considered citizens, Domma. If you truly believe the
Guard will give a shit about this, you're delusional." He visibly
calmed himself. "My apologies, Domma. My tongue is . . . too free
sometimes.”

Domma didn't mind Potter's
anger, what concerned her was that he was right. The Guard was
spread thin enough as it was. They had no interest in the murder of
a mentally ill person. The hospitals
had
been partially funded by King
Maxton about ten years ago, but that didn't mean they had the full
support of everyone in the kingdom. If she made a plea to the king
would he send a Kingsguardian to follow up?
Probably not.
But Domma had met the
king once and he had seemed nice.

Of course, even if someone did come, and did
care, what difference would it make? The Guard weren't detectives,
they were muscle, and Domma wasn't sure most of them could even
count to ten let alone solve a murder. There was no arrest to be
made here.

“I might be able to use my Devotee magic on
. . . his corpse,” Domma said.

Potter held up his hands defensively. “I
know so little of that magic. If you think it will help you may
try. Oh,” Potter moaned. “Ormon reminded me of myself when I was
younger. Energetic, hopeful, scared. I wanted to . . . to help
him.”

Domma cocked her head. “When you were
younger? You're in your thirties, Potter. You talk as if you're
seventy.”

“But this job wears on me,” he said. “Some
of my hair is graying.”

Domma had a powerful urge to touch his
stubbly head, but she quelled it and focused on the task at hand.
Her gaze fell back onto Ormon who she had talked with only five
days ago. Something was odd about the grizzly scene.

“That part of his head is missing,” she
noted.

“Yes,” Potter said, seeming unimpressed.

“No,” said Domma. “I mean
it's
missing
.
There should be a chunk of . . . of his head somewhere. Who would
chop it off and take it? Shouldn't there be a blood trail to the
door?” She shuddered. “While I work on him you need to check the
other patients' rooms.”

“Alright. We've only got about twenty others
here right now. Pox claimed a few of my weaker patients and other
than that we've just been lucky not to get too many injured people
coming in. It won't take me long.”

“Search empty rooms, too,” Domma said.

Potter ran to the door and then turned
around. “You don't think Funary could have done it, do you?”

“He murdered Ormon and then came to get me?”
Domma asked.

“Riiight,” Potter said. Then he left.

Domma delved into Ormon's mind, or what was
left of it.

It was disastrous inside.

For the most part Delving was extremely
random. Domma had learned long ago to simply let the information
flow into her, rather than to try and look for specific things.
Ormon's mind no longer danced like a living person's, however. His
thoughts were still there, not yet taken by time and decay, but it
was as if they were suspended in a thick sea.

Memories jutted out like shards of glass,
fragmented and strange. Some thoughts went down shattered paths to
dead ends, others looped around in an impossible pattern. The
remnants of Ormon's brain housed a bloody sea of driftwood
ideas.

Maybe something will rise
to the surface
, Domma thought as she
sifted.

She Delved hard, expending the greatest
amount of power near the area where she had just recently worked.
Something was wrong there. She remembered the tangled mess she had
run into those five days ago and that's when it struck her. The
area of Ormon's brain upon which she had worked her influence was
missing. Had it been specifically targeted, or was it
coincidence?

But the murderer had
taken
it. Away. There
was a void around that area both physically and mentally. A word
floated close to the edge of that void. The word glowed a harsh
white in her mind. Now that she had seen it once she saw it
repeated a thousand times as if it had collected at the edge of
that mind-sea, swept by a tide to the shore.

FOGLIN

Domma's stomach sank.

“Did you find anything?” Potter asked,
startling Domma.

“No,” she said weakly, not knowing why she
lied.

“Me neither,” he said. “Alright. What
next?”

D
omma and Potter sat in a shabby room at the hospital. They
had been talking for at least an hour and Domma was
exhausted.

“I have a small cleaning
staff sometimes,” Potter said, his head resting in his hands.
“Funary was a new addition and certainly
not
my idea. Other than that it's
just the patients. Usually I'm one man trying to do the work of
five.”

“This still makes no sense at all,” Domma
said. “I really need to pray for guidance on this.”

She hadn't told Potter the word she had seen
in Ormon's mind. It had shaken her to her core to see such a
powerful statement, and Domma's instincts – on which she heavily
relied – told her that now was not the time to bring it up. Domma
didn't want to believe that Foglins were real. She knew about the
Vaporgaard, but had never really needed to know about what they did
or why. Foglins were things that you heard about in whispers, not
something you found shouted out in the mind of a dead Haroman
man.

“I don't know what the next step is,” she
admitted. “I think all that is left may be to pray for Ormon and
bury his body. I can help you with that.”

“Domma,” Potter said, “I can't thank you
enough for your help. Having you here in my life is such a
reassurance. This isn't the best time to speak of this . . . but
there is never going to be a right time.”

“Then let's not speak of-”

“Let me,” Potter said. “You and I have
worked on and off for years here and . . . there aren't many that
bother thinking about these people, let alone someone who will come
here and sit with them as they rave. You are one of the most caring
people I have ever met.” He leaned forward and met her eyes. Domma
braced herself for what she knew was coming. She thought about
standing up to break his gaze, but couldn't bring herself to. “I
don't know the rules of the Clerics, but I do know I would like to
see more of you. My devotion to these people allows me little rest
and even less solace, but I think I could find the time. Religion
is, I must admit, much of a dead end for me. But you . . . you are
not. You represent things that I have given up on, and have been
meaning to rekindle.”

“The Clerics are strict on relationships,”
Domma said, falling back on rote instead of what she actually
wanted to say. She began to sweat. “There can be nothing between
us, but I am sure you suspected that.”

Potter's face fell. And it truly hurt Domma.
“I did suspect,” he said. “There is no one else in my life. My
heart aches. I don't know what to say. Words fail me.” He stopped
and sighed heavily. “I feel foolish.”

Using her magic on Ormon had left Domma
drained of power. She was alone in this conflict, unable to Delve
for guidance.

“We can never be more than
friends,” she said, but she definitely did not feel the conviction
in her words. Her mind echoed the truth.
This could work. This could really work.
“If we pray together, perhaps some of your feelings will
abate. God can sort this out.”

“I doubt it,” said Potter. “But He's welcome
to try. Shall we hold hands while we pray?”

Domma smirked. “I seriously doubt that would
be a good idea.”

P
ozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ninnnnnnnnnn

“He has feelings for me, Lord. And I think I
have feelings for him. This is very, very bad.”

No response.

“I don't know what to do about Ormon,
either. He was dead with Foglins on his mind. They did this to him.
Whatever they are. However they got here. I don't want to believe
they are real. I don't want to have to believe in nightmares.”