The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (22 page)

“That was part of your surprise when you
fought Katya.”

Ti'Shed grunted. “When I was working with
Kelin and Telin-” Here Ti'Shed paused abruptly as if he were trying
to remember back that far. “They were so young. When I worked with
Kelin and Telin they weren't Servitors yet, just incredibly skilled
swordsmen. Then, once they became Servitors, their powers were
erratic and impossible to control.”

“How did they become Servitors in the first
place?”

“It takes a true act of Service to feel the
spark of that magic in you. Defending someone, saving a life,
carrying an incredibly heavy burden, giving someone just what they
need right when they need it. It might be all, one, or none of
these things that sets off the magic, or it might just choose its
own time. God grants things in mysterious ways.”

“Katya's only service to me was going to be
making sure I couldn't have children,” Krothair said. “How does she
possess such powerful magic if she can use it to try and accomplish
such awful things?”

“It's true that in order to build power –
once you have the magic, I mean – you must Serve others. But
whatever you choose to do with the power you collect is up to you.
My guess is that that woman lives a double life. She must, at some
points in time, Serve others in some capacity, but then she chooses
to use her powers for thieving. Or jewel removal.”

“You seem to understand so much,” Krothair
said. "If I develop the magic . . . can you teach me how it
works?"

Ti'Shed smirked, his eyes and personality
still dulled for the time being. “Knowing how shiny a sword is does
not mean you know how to swing it, Krothair. Knowing that a fish
swims in the water doesn't mean you know how it breathes. Knowing
that the sun is hot-”

“Alright,” said Krothair. He actually
laughed a little.

This easy conversation was fairly typical of
this time of night. Ti'Shed was an unforgivable beast on the
training field, but he was rather easy to talk to as the day wore
on. Perhaps the Duller built up during the day, pouring out all of
its considerable ability to mute emotions near dusk. Ti'Shed's
apology for the the training that day would be coming soon, as it
had most other nights.

“I don't want you to get too distracted by
this topic,” the sword master said. “There's no use dreaming about
things you can't do. That sort of nonsense only detracts from the
moment at hand.”

“What if I feel the spark someday?” Krothair
asked.

“If you do,” Ti'Shed said, “I want you to
tell me right away.” The sword master sighed. “Krothair, I'm sorry
about how things went today. I warned you that a part of myself is
tearing away.”

“I know,” Krothair said. “I'm sorry I went
away today.”

“You were right to, I think. And you came
back alive with your manhood intact. That's always important.”

Ti'Shed rose slowly from his chair, wincing
slightly as he did. He shuffled slowly off to his bedroom and,
without another word, went inside with the tiniest opening and
closing of the door.

Krothair sat at the table thinking for
another half-bell, moving not a muscle, just feeling out his
emotions.

An owl hooted outside. It was the first time
Krothair had heard that sound inside the city. He went outside to
see if he could find the bird, but it wasn't in sight. The moon was
bright overhead and Krothair went to the well and sat on its low
wall, content to be alone, silent, and unmoving.

Everything that had happened today had
become rather commonplace, actually. In the morning Ti'Shed would
yell Krothair out of bed or, if that failed, haul him out into the
training yard using some new hold that Krothair hadn't yet learned.
They would train until Krothair was physically and mentally
exhausted, and then they would work some more, Ti'Shed swooping and
diving aggressively, trying – it seemed – to bombard Krothair with
so much knowledge that it was more of an attack than a tutorial.
Then, by night, once Krothair was ready to walk away from
everything, Ti'Shed would apologize, then Duller himself to
sleep.

But Krothair knew that it would start again
the next morning.

He decided that this cycle would never end
unless he did something more drastic. Going away for a bit today
wasn't enough. He needed to stop being passive and hoping that
everything would pass. It was time to take some action.

For better or worse he had to find the thing
that had started all of this, and seek his answers from there.

Tomorrow, he swore, he would find that
red-sheathed sword.

H
alimaldie wore his heaviest leather gloves despite the heat.
Aside from his gloves he was reasonably attired in his least flashy
clothing. He was sweating already, though, and it wasn't just from
the heat. He was nervous again.
This is a
feeling I don't enjoy.

He'd put off this visit to the hospital for
five days already, but the promise he had made to his brother had
finally pushed him to act. Halimaldie hadn't exactly been
supportive of the hospitals, and the irony of needing to use one
wasn't really lost on him. But his hand more now. The infection had
been slowly spreading, now getting under his nails and turning them
black as well. It had spread to the back of his hand and was
threatening to crawl further up his arm.

Halimaldie's hands were down at his sides
ready to grab his twin daggers if he needed them. He knew that back
alleys were seedy, and Halimaldie's heart beat faster as he walked
them.

Finally – and thankfully without incident –
he stood before the fifth district hospital. It was a large
building that looked as if it had been cobbled together from all
sorts of materials by many different hands. Every single window was
boarded over and the front door – if the slab of uncarved wood was
indeed a door – was dented in the middle as if some great battering
ram had struck it at one point in its history.

“What a shit-heap,” he said to himself.
“This is what the Kingdom's taxes pay for?”

The door grated open noisily on rusty hinges
when he pushed on it and Halimaldie was immediately greeted by many
strange smells, most of them surprisingly clean. From the outward
look of the place he had expected dung and blood, but he was met
with a pine smell and another of fragrant soaps.

“Hello?” he called into the quiet,
candle-lit building.

He stepped inside and found
himself in some kind of waiting room. There was a shoddy desk at
one end and a few candelabrum on the walls. The flames glowed
unnaturally, and he wondered for a moment if they were
magical.
Here I am wondering if everything
strange is magical now. What is happening to me?
A breeze blew lightly through the place despite
the fact that he could see no openings to the outside.

This was truly like another world.

A woman materialized out of the shadow and
glided over to the desk, looking much like the moving branches of a
willow. She was graceful and powerful and Halimaldie couldn't help
but stare at her.

“Are you Tellurian's brother?” she
asked.

“Resemblance that strong?”

The woman nodded and smiled gently. “It's
not unnoticeable. He's out right now, but told me all that I need
to know.”

“I can't believe he's out. Maybe I'll come
back later. I really wanted him to be here.”

“Well you didn't make an
appointment,” the woman said. Is
she one
of the tree witches – Protectors – that Tell had been talking
about?
She certainly seemed a creature of
natural beauty. “He has other things that he does, you know. He
doesn't just hang about the district hospital waiting for
you.”

“I know,” Halimaldie said, blushing. “I
guess it was foolish to expect him to be here all the time.”

The woman laughed. “My name is Yarrow. I'll
be taking care of you, Halimaldie.”

Halimaldie winced. “I'd appreciate if you
wouldn't just throw my name around like that.”

“There is no reason to worry. We protect all
of our clients, even a man of your stature.”

“Especially a man of my stature.”

“
Even
a man of your stature.” Yarrow
smiled again. A small brown bat fluttered down out of the air and
landed on Yarrow's shoulder.

“There's a-”

“A bat on my shoulder? Yes. He seems to be
quite a threat, doesn't he?” Yarrow leaned her head over and
nuzzled the bat. Halimaldie became aware of the disgusted look on
his face and worked to correct it immediately.

He had suddenly plunged
himself into a world he knew nothing about.
Why hadn't I known anything about this, though? And what are
the possibilities if magic is real?

“Society could make such a better use of
us,” Yarrow said, “but we are either feared, shunned, or
disbelieved.” Obviously she had noticed the look on Halimaldie's
face. “Perhaps you will become a believer today.”

“I like to think I take
things at face value,” Halimaldie said. He now wished he had
finished his drink before coming here.
Has
this world been under my nose for my whole life? Have I been too
caught up in other matters to see it?

Yarrow smiled. “Come with me,” she said. She
held out a hand that floated gracefully in front of her. Halimaldie
took it, as he guessed he was expected to do.

“I could get used to this,” he said, feeling
the warmth of it.

“Oh, yes,” Yarrow said, lightly. “It is
peaceful in here.”

That hadn't been what Halimaldie meant.

They descended a large staircase into pitch
blackness.

“I
understand the hand holding now,” Halimaldie said. “But why
does it have to be so dark?” He wasn't sure he liked this
situation, but he had come this far and he was incredibly
curious.

“The hospital is a refuge as much as it is a
place of Healing. This keeps everyone safer. Tully here tells me
where to go.”

“Who's Tully?”

“My bat.”

“He can talk to you?”

“Yes,” Yarrow said, her voice echoing as if
they were in a great space.

“Who is this place a refuge for?” Halimaldie
asked.

Yarrow didn't say anything for a few moments
as she slowly stepped forward, tugging Halimaldie along. “I thought
a man in your position would know more of the world,” she said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Protectors are hated. Perhaps you didn't
hear about the battle of the Dryad Tree during the war. It was the
one that ended it.”

“The battle of Shai Springs ended the war,”
Halimaldie said.

Yarrow sighed in the darkness. “They covered
it up for all these years. The battle at the Dryad Tree was the
great victory of my people, and both Kingdoms covered it up,
slaughtered us because of the power we'd had.”

Halimaldie could tell he had made some sort
of mistake so he abandoned that line of questioning. “What happens
if someone just brings a candle down here?”

“You think a mere candle can pierce this
Darkness?”

“My God,” Halimaldie said, becoming a little
frightened. “What are you tree witches capable of?”

“See what I mean?” Yarrow said sadly.

Halimaldie cursed himself. “I'm sorry.”

They walked in silence after that until
Yarrow pulled a door open.

Two things began to happen at the same time:
Halimaldie saw a room filled with color and life, and his diseased
hand began to pulse and throb in time with some unknown rhythm.

H
alimaldie began to pick at his glove, trying to relieve the
pressure he now felt from it, and at the same time he tried to take
in his surroundings. The room they had entered wasn't huge, but it
certainly felt that way. Murals had been painted on the ceiling
that mimicked the sky so perfectly that Halimaldie had to convince
himself it wasn't real. Plants grew in abundance and there was also
a faint breeze down here, just as there had been in the reception
area upstairs.

There were beds and hammocks lining the
walls and Halimaldie saw people who must have been patients lying
on most of them. Other women – very much like Yarrow in their
demeanor and dress – moved about the room tending to one person or
another.

All in all the room probably held
two-hundred people: mostly patients, a scant few Protectors, and
still others who looked like they fit neither role.

“There's a whole other world down here,”
Halimaldie said. “Who would want to harm this? It's beautiful.”

Yarrow bowed her head. “Most people simply
fear what is different, or what they don't know. Seeing with your
own eyes is a start, but for most people that's not good enough
either.”

Halimaldie found that he
had subconsciously rolled his right glove down, exposing a bit of
his disease to the open air. He could feel it pulsing more strongly
as he moved farther into the room.
Is it
reacting to the magic that flows through the air here?

“Sit,” Yarrow said, motioning to an empty
bed. “We'll have a look at your injury. And for God's sake don't
pick at it.”

Halimaldie sat on the clean, white sheets
with Yarrow across from him. He stripped off the rest of his glove
and let it fall to the floor. She cradled his hand in hers
again.

“I've never seen anything like this,” Yarrow
said, leaning further over to inspect it. The front of her robe
fell away from her chest and Halimaldie caught a glimpse of it
before her long black hair fell down and intervened.

“I got it from some sort of infected
gemstones. There was . . . a Foglin involved.”