The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (25 page)

“This shit isn't turning out right,” she
said, blowing some of her blond hair away from her face as she
worked.

“My ma used to say that if you could hold
your hand inside the oven for five heartbeats, it was the right
temperature for bread,” Otom offered.

“Yeah, you told me that before."

Allura was a fantastic friend, lover, and
housekeeper, but she wasn't a gifted cook.

“There's always jerky,” Otom suggested.

“You're always jerky,” she said. “I can do
this, Otom. I just need more time to learn.”

Otom closed his eyes and went back to
relaxing, letting Allura finish undisturbed. His muscles were
incredibly sore from the local tournament he had fought in
yesterday. He had won the whole thing, continuing the undefeated
streak he had been on since his parents' deaths. Perhaps it was
time for him to take another stab at a larger regional tournament,
like the one in Kilgaan. But the thought of that still made him
feel weak.

Otom was so relaxed right now that he felt
himself drifting in and out of dreams:

The air hung thick around
Otom like a shroud. He was near a stream in a misty forest,
watching salmon try to swim upriver to spawn.

“They do that because they know nothing
else,” explained a voice.

“But it's so senseless,” Otom said. “Most of
them die in the process. Couldn't they find another way?”

The mysterious voice said: “Creatures will
often do very stupid things for love.” The last word echoed.

Otom's nose began to tingle and he rubbed at
it with the back of his hand. His eyes began to water and his skin
felt hot and flushed as he watched thousands of salmon swim against
the current. They swam faster and faster, jumping higher and higher
and higher. Events sped up till Otom felt sick at the pace. Sun.
Moon. Sun. Moon. Sun-

Suddenly he was awakened by the smell of
smoke. He opened his eyes to see black billowing clouds hanging
thick in the air and he panicked, hurling himself out of his
chair.

“Allura?” he coughed. He crouched low and
walked towards where Allura had been cooking.

She was lying on the floor. Otom put his
hands under her arms and dragged her outside. He grabbed a huge
armful of snow and carried it inside to throw on the flames that
had grown near the stove, but it wasn't enough. It hissed and
melted as it made contact with the fire, but it seemed to make not
a dent in the blaze.

Otom worked tirelessly trying to smother the
flames with blankets and snow while alternately checking on Allura,
but eventually he lost the battle, his house collapsing in on
itself with a mighty thud and a rush of flame. He was barely able
to throw Allura and himself out of the way of the avalanche of wood
and fire.

Allura's nose was bleeding, but Otom wasn't
sure when that had happened. He stood up slowly from the ground and
gazed at what remained of his parents' house. It would take him
quite some time to rebuild it. His heart felt like wood. He
wondered - for the first time, but not the last – if he were cursed
somehow. He gathered his beauty up in his arms and headed to the
shed where she would be warm enough.

“Fire Kin,” she muttered as he carried
her.

“What did you say?” Otom asked.

“Fire Kin.” The words barely escaped her
pale, dry lips.

He opened the door to the shed and carried
her inside. There was just enough room to lay her down on the floor
and close the door. Light shone in only from the small window as
Otom tried to decide what to do next.

Allura decided for him when she stood up
suddenly, nearly hitting her head on the ceiling of the small
space.

“Make love to me,” she said, her face
suddenly wild.

“Excuse me?” asked Otom.

“Fuck me,” she repeated slowly, as if she
were talking to a slow child.

She grabbed her coat and tore it open,
exposing the cotton dress she always wore under it. She shrugged
her arms out of the coat as Otom stood still, not moving a muscle,
fearing he was suffering some delusion.

“Allura,” he said, “you have to keep your
coat on. It's well below freezing out here.”

She shrugged herself free from the shoulders
of her dress and quickly tore it down, leaving her torso
susceptible to the open air. Her skin had goosebumps all the way
from her shoulders to her waist, her skin an odd blue color.

“Something's wrong with you,” Otom said.

“Yes,” she said. “The fact that you are not
on top of me.”

Otom noticed her eyes. They looked similar
to how Ris's had looked as he'd paced under the treehouse;
bloodshot and oddly aimed. Allura grabbed Otom's hand and tried to
pull it to her chest, but Otom resisted, not knowing exactly what
was going on.

“What's the matter?” she challenged. “Tits
aren't big enough for ya, Fire Kin?”

“No,” he said, trying to push her dress up.
“You've gone insane.”

Allura put her hands to her head then,
abandoning her attack on Otom's hand. He took the opportunity to
try and get her coat wrapped around her again and he was able to
close it over her. She wept as he lowered her gently to the
ground.

“Oh, Otom,” she moaned. “My head hurts . . .
so much.” A fresh bit of blood slowly trickled down from her
nose.

“Something's wrong,” he said. “Lura, we have
to get you to . . . someone that knows what's happening.” She was
sick, and Otom had very limited options. The only person in close
proximity that he would trust with something like this was Silence.
“This may seem like a dumb question,” he said, “but can you walk at
all? Otherwise I'm gonna have to rig a sled to take you to
Silence.”

“Oh, please don't let anyone else see me
like this,” Allura begged as she had before.

“Someone's going to need to see you. Do you
need a sled?”

She didn't answer, but Otom began
immediately to ready what they would need. The house could be
rebuilt later, if at all. He realized suddenly that in some ways it
was freeing that it had burned. He didn't recognize the feeling of
relief at the time because he had been in such a panic, but it was
actually rather cleansing.

“Maybe I'll rebuild you,” he muttered to the
house as he exited the shed. “Or maybe I won't.”

Between the burned and fallen walls Otom
could see to the backyard where the gravestones of his ma, da, and
Ris sat with a clean layer of white snow on their dimpled gray
tops.

S
ilence wasn't silent all the time. Only during training was
he totally devoid of words. He often said 'words obscure meaning'
and he smiled a little when he said it.

“This the girl, eh?” Silence said as he felt
Allura's face with gentle hands. His eyes were pale and never
looking in the right direction. Their blind stare had taken Otom
some time to get used to at first.

Allura lay on the only bed in Silence's
house and she was quiet for now, breathing shallowly. She'd had
another strange fit while she had been on the sled, and Otom had
had to just ignore her and keep pulling.

“This is her,” Otom said.

“She burnin' up." Silence laid his old,
wrinkled hand on her forehead. He loomed over her, his face
concerned, his eyes staring at the wall.

“She's been having fits, her nose is
bleeding, and I think she passed out earlier today. I didn't know
where else to take her. Don't want to travel too far with her. When
she passed out she must have knocked something over or . . . I
don't know what, but most of the place burned down.”

Silence slowly shook his bald head. “Oh,
Otom. A shame. Dangerous, this one."

“Something like that. But I love her. We
have to help her. I know a lot of medicine, but I don't know what
to do about this.”

Allura coughed and her eyes fluttered.

“She very sick,” Silence said. “I never
quite felt nothin' like this. Concussed perhaps, but the fever
burns too hotly.” He tucked the blanket tighter around Allura and
cracked his knuckles, something he often did when he was
frustrated. “She can stay here. But she must be careful and you
must stay, too. I feel something here. There is only one thing I
know that might help her but it will be hard to get. You are young.
Maybe up to the task.”

“I'll do anything,” Otom said.
“Anything.”

T
he next words that Silence would speak to Otom would start
him on the journey that would end his old life.

“She need a branch,” Silence had said. “A
branch from the Dryad Tree.”

Otom remembered the rest of that day so
vividly. He'd tried to decide what to do. Silence had never steered
him wrong before and Allura had looked so very sick. That giant old
tree – the Dryad Tree – really might have been her only hope.

The winter sun had streamed through the
window as Otom had sat next to Allura and looked down at her. Her
hair had lost its vibrancy and lay limp and lifeless around her
pale head. She had looked as if she might already be dead, and he
remembered that he had checked her breathing obsessively.

So he had packed provisions and set off with
wild determination to save the woman he loved.

Traveling to the Tree would become a journey
that would change him forever.

O
tom began to pack his meager belongings. It was time for him
to finish this journey and move on from Pakken because of – and
despite - the memories it held.

He stuffed The Book into his pack and stood
up on legs that were wearier than he would have liked. It had been
both joyous and sad to see the world once more. Joyous because not
much seemed to have changed, but sad for the same reason. He
checked the positions of the stars and turned slowly where he
stood, trying to realign himself to his course. The space he had
made here for himself had become a little temporary home in the
past week and a half, but the time had come for him to move on.

He extinguished his Fire, telling the flames
to cease. Magic still pulsed within him, growing steadily as the
power of a Monk always did. As long as he was Sacrificing, the
power trickled into him at a steady pace.

And he was always Sacrificing.

His boots crunched in the snow and Otom
pulled his fur hood up snugly over his bald head. His hair had
started to grow back until he had found that dead soldier's dagger.
He had made quick work of it.

He walked east now, traipsing through the
bitter and uninhabited north. He stopped when he had to and
traveled when he could.

One night, when the snapping of a twig
alerted him, he sent out a pulse of Detection that confirmed what
he suspected.

He was being followed.

“G
ustus had the sword, and God had the shield,” Domma boomed
over the congregation. “And Gustus roared, letting his voice ring
through the air. 'Father,' he yelled, 'I have given everything for
you and you repay me with treachery!' His words rang off the
mountains, causing small stones to tumble down the sides. 'You are
nothing more than an unruly child,' God said quietly, sheltering
himself behind his shield, ready for what he knew must be
coming."

Domma gazed out over the congregation.

“God is not all powerful. Anyone who tries
to convince you otherwise is misguided. All things have strengths
and weaknesses. The mightiest of oaks can fall to termites. Rock
and bone can be smoothed away by persistent sand and water. And so
Gustus knew that his cause was not lost, that he could win even if
the odds were against him. The Book says he then dimmed the sun,
casting his mighty hand to block its light. For Gustus was young,
and his sight was better.”

Domma slammed her hand down loudly on top of
The Book in front of her. The sound echoed and people jumped.

“Gustus launched himself at his father,
sword splitting the air in front of him. They came together with a
mighty clang the reverberations of which still ring today in the
halls of the universe. Again and again Gustus's sword rained down
on his father's shield. 'I should rule by your side!' Gustus
shouted as his sword left deep dents in his father's shield. But
God knew this was not to be, and he also knew something of the
cosmos. As he heard the whoosh of Gustus's sword drawing back he
rekindled the sun, flames dancing from its surface.

“The shield which he held had been polished
by the winds of aeons and its surface, though dented, was able to
harness the light of the bursting sun and direct it into Gustus's
face. God heard his son shrieking and said over him, 'You are
strong enough to rule, my son. But never by my side.' And as Gustus
was reeling and blinded, God banished him.

“Gustus waits somewhere, hoping to prove
himself to his father by cultivating his own world." Domma closed
The Book slowly. "We're ending with Gustus and God here today,” she
said. “There is much more to cover in The Book that is often
overlooked, but it has been my pleasure to preach to all of
you.”

Domma stepped down from the altar and walked
to her room without looking back. She had been distracted through
the entire sermon, and her mind had been wandering back to what she
had read in the Bibliofero.

She would have no meetings in her study
today; the congregation would just have to ask one of the other
Clerics.

Today was the day she would go to see Potter
and tell him what she had found inside young Ormon's mind, and
then, maybe, what was in her own.

D
omma pushed through the heavy front doors of the Sunburst
Temple and out into the hot day.