The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (42 page)

“Tellurian!” Halimaldie shouted. “What the
hell have you done?!”

“Only what I felt was right,” Tellurian
responded. He winced. “What did you do to my head?”

“You think this is right?!” shouted
Halimaldie, ignoring the other comment. He indicated the slaughter
which was going on in the room.

“It has its purpose.”

“I looked up to you,Tellurian! I looked up
to you! Do you know how hard that is for me to admit? Please.
Please don't let this be true.”

“It is truth. Cut my throat or join me. No
one will leave this place alive if you don't choose one of those
options.”

“Your money funded hospitals that saved
lives!”

“My money built me undisturbed breeding
pits. Hopefully Haroma is overrun as we speak.”

“Why did you do this? Why?”

“Kill him, D'Arvenant,” said a voice to his
left. It was Angloriel.

“Shut up, Kingsguardian! Why, Tellurian?
Why!”

“You don't remember when we were growing up.
Halimaldie: the one who always knew what to do. Knew how to
succeed. People liked you, Hal.”

“Don't let this be about petty childhood
bullshit, Tell! This is treason!”

Tellurian shook his head.
The silver dagger cut him and he winced. “You'll never understand,
Hal, because you've always had power. Not everyone's like you. This
was
my
power.
These were
my
operations. I was promised the world for my part. Sometimes
things don't work out. So now, kill me or join me.” He was silent
for a moment, then his face contorted. “KILL ME OR
JOIN-”

A sword stabbed into Tellurian's chest,
cutting off any further words.

Halimaldie followed the sword up the arm to
Angloriel. He swallowed hard, suddenly weak as a kitten.

“He was my brother,” Halimaldie said.

“I am sorry, D'Arvenant.”

“And I as well,” Krothair said.

Tellurian slumped down the wall, red blood
marking his path down the stone.

Halimaldie's voice was a whisper. “And I
truly did love him.”

W
ren's eyes fluttered open in the silence.

She lifted her head and found her neck to be
incredibly sore. The slash across her chest was pulling,
threatening to break open again.

“Shh,” Heather said. The old woman was
leaning over Wren, working her hands above her.

“Is it over?” Wren asked.

“It's over.”

“Tessa and Crasher?”

“They're resting,” Heather said. She pointed
at the bear and the mouse.

“Thank God,” said Wren. “They're alive.” She
could feel their presences now. She tried to put her hands on her
stomach. “My baby!”

“All is well, Wren. You must hold still. I'm
almost done.”

Some kind of cool magic passed over Wren,
tingling her skin as it worked from head to toe.

She sat up as Heather slumped to the floor,
exhausted. “That kind of Healing can really take a lot of out you,”
she said quietly.

Wren looked around. Krothair, Angloriel, and
Otom were all nursing wounds, and Halimaldie, though seemingly
unscathed, sat in a corner, his legs drawn up tight to his chest,
his face haunted. Domma was leaning against Otom's back. It looked
at if she might have been weeping, but Wren wasn't sure.

The white foal limped up to Wren and started
licking her face.

The room was littered with Foglin corpses.
The floor was covered with their black, oozing, blood.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “Has this
whole journey been for nothing?”

“I'm not sure,” said Heather. “For now we
recover, my child.”

Wren looked around her at everyone who had a
glowing forearm symbol. Everyone's pulsed with the same rhythm.

Raven walked into the room carrying a large
tome in her hands. She was struggling under its weight, taking
crooked steps. Wren couldn't tell if the girl was wounded or just
weak.

“What have you got there, girl?” Angloriel
asked, struggling to his feet.

“Found it in a side room,” she said between
heavy breaths. “You people really should look around more. Haven't
any of you got a sense of curiosity?”

“It's been a little difficult,” Halimaldie
said, darkly. “What with surviving and all.”

Raven set – more like dropped – the book
down in a clear area of stone. “There was a dead guy with it too,”
she said. “Had a quill in his hand and everything. Very dedicated
writer.”

“Maybe we'd better not mess with such
artifacts,” Heather suggested.

Raven paid no heed and flipped open the
cover of the tome, which was easily the size of her torso. She
flipped through the first few pages. “Terrible handwriting,” she
decreed. “Who can read this script?”

“Let me see it,” Domma said.

“Allura, wait,” Otom said. It was the first
words Wren had heard him say. His voice was a whisper.

“Otom! You're talking!” Raven gasped.

“It will be alright,” Domma – Allura,
apparently – responded to him.

Allura bent over the book and began to read,
tracing the lines with her finger. Krothair was checking the
bandage on his bloody arm. Halimaldie stood up and began walking
over to the tome slowly.

“It seems to be . . . some sort of
transcription,” Allura said. “A great portion of it is incoherent
babble.” She flipped some of the pages. “Looks to be split into
five sections . . .”

“Well, there's five of us with marks,”
Krothair said.

“Would seem to make sense,” Allura agreed.
“I think I can read it, but it might be slow going at first. This
is really something that belongs in the Bibliofero at Haroma . .
.”

“If you think we can carry that heavy-ass
book back to the city, be my guest,” said Raven.

“I could carry it,” Krothair offered.

“Aye,” said Angloriel.

“Otom could carry it,” Raven said. “He's
huge!”

“Quiet,” Allura warned. “We'll worry about
that later. I shouldn't have even said anything. There's a symbol
on this page that looks like yours.” Allura was indicating
Wren.

“Me?” the girl squeaked.

“Yes. Shall I read what is written under
it?”

Wren's heart pounded and she felt dizzy. But
there was the vine and thorns at the top of the page, just like the
symbol on her arm. “Yes,” she said.

“To the Chosen Protector,” Allura began. “If
you are to undertake the next part of your quest, you must grow in
knowledge and power. Your path leads you far, to new soil. Near the
town of Benshar, there is nature's work to be done. Take the blade
you possess, for brandishing it in the right people's presence will
allow access to the inner workings of a corrupted place. You will
have to pose as something you are not, in order to do what is
right.”

“Benshar is in western Shailand,” Angloriel
said. “Why would this book send you into enemy territory?”

“War's over, Kingsguardian,” Allura
said.

“I'm actually from near there anyway,” Wren
said timidly. “But . . . who is ordering this?”

“I guess it would be God."

“Oh, I'm so sick of him,” Halimaldie said.
“Get to my part would ya? I now have no idea who's been running my
empire. It sure hasn't been my brother.” He coughed and breathed
out. “I have to get back if we're almost done here.”

Allura flipped through the pages, coming
upon the one with the coin at the top.

“To the Chosen Benefactor,” Allura read.
“Your task is the simplest and toughest at the same time. Since the
beginning of time, men of power have tried to harness the world.
Always grasping for more and more. You will need great power in the
future. Therefore, you must find worthy causes and donate
everything that you own to them. Your entire fortune must be split
up and-”

“You can stop right there,” Halimaldie said,
cutting her off. “I don't mean to seem difficult here, but I did
just watch my brother die. Now a book, written by a dead guy, is
telling me to give up the only things I have left in my life.”

“You have to do what it says,” Krothair
protested.

“No I fucking well do not,
kid,” Halimaldie said. “It's insanity. This is all insanity. You
know I almost started to
trust
all of this shit.”

“You can't run from this. You can't scrub
your mark away,” Wren said timidly. “I've tried.”

“I'm going back to Haroma.”

“Just when we're getting so close to the
answers?” Otom whispered.

“I have a lot of patience. But this is it,
fellow glowing friends. We're being had. Doing the bidding of some
invisible force we don't understand. It's great to pretend. It's
great to think we're a part of something bigger. It's been a cargo
hold of laughs. But I'm done with it now.” He turned to leave.

“Please don't go, Hal,” Allura said.

But it didn't make a difference. Halimaldie
walked through the large main door, his glowing symbol fading into
the trees.

There was silence for a long time.

“Read mine,” Otom whispered. “If this is
truly a divine plan, I will trust it. God has been good to me
lately.” He smiled at Allura.

Allura thumbed through the book until she
found the page that had the fish at the top.

“To the Chosen Monk,” she said, her voice
wavering. “You have sacrificed much to get here. But now I will ask
a greater task of you than has ever been asked before. In order for
your power to grow, you must sacrifice the most difficult thing in
the world. Your . . . love.” Allura stumbled over the last
word.

“What?” Otom whispered. He stood up.

“You are not to be with the Chosen Devotee,”
Allura continued, her voice shaken. “Your paths must diverge. You
will go with the Chosen Protector, as you are in possession of
something that will aid her quest.”

Wren looked at Otom. His face was despondent
as he looked back at her. She thought she could see tears welling
in his eyes.

“Oh, Wren!” exclaimed Raven. “We're going to
be the best of friends!” The woman came over and put her arm around
Wren, squeezing with an annoying tightness.

“Perhaps Halimaldie was right,” Otom said.
“Perhaps we should abandon this quest right now.”

“No,” Allura said. She breathed out. “Have
faith, Otom. Fate brought us together once, it will bring us
together again. If we are faithful. I made a promise that I would
be.”

Otom stood silent for a moment, looking
every inch a pillar of strength. But Wren could tell he was
devastated on the inside.

“Where are you to go, then?” Otom asked
Allura, his throat tight, his voice still a whisper.

Allura paged through the book until she came
upon the page with a picture of the sun in the sky.

“To the Chosen Devotee. The island nation of
Trirene has ever lacked faith in me and my miracles. Their inner
workings are mostly beyond my sight. Bring me there. Their powers
must not be wasted in the conflict to come.”

“Missionary work,” Otom said flatly. “Across
the sea.”

“It would seem so."

“I'll take care of Otom,” Raven offered.

Allura shook her head. “I don't know how I
feel about that.”

Raven looked confused and then backed away
from Allura a little bit.

“Read mine,” Krothair said. The boy looked
nervous, but anxious.

Allura flipped again, finding the page with
the broken sword symbol sketched on it.

“To the Chosen Servitor,” she read. “You are
to train in the ways of the Servitor, in the paths of many of the
greatest Kingsguardians, but you will not train in the city of
Haroma. You will turn yourself over to the Royal Force of
Marshanti. Your training will be completed by those which you have
never known, in a city you have never seen.”

Krothair listened to his quest with a blank
look on his face. He sighed.

“The Royal Force,”
Angloriel said. “What a bunch of fuckin' pussies. It should
be
our
duty to
train young Krothair. Oh, King Maxton will not like this in the
least. I think this tome plays games with us.”

“I cannot say what it does or does not do,”
Allura said. “All I can urge, as a Cleric of the Sunburst Temple,
is that we trust it. No matter what you believe, events have led us
all together for a reason.”

“But now we are only four of five,” Krothair
noted.

“Halimaldie will come back to us,” Allura
said. “Like Wren pointed out, he can't escape his fate any more
than the rest of us can. No matter . . . no matter how much he may
wish to.”

“What is the point of all this?” Wren asked.
“There's no reasons given.”

“We must grow in power to be able to
complete some task,” Allura said, shrugging. “I have questioned God
and flown in his face too many times during my life. I am not about
to rekindle my old habits. I will go to Trirene and establish his
word and his teachings there. I hope, along the way, things will
become clearer to me. But until then, I suggest we go our separate
ways, safe in the knowledge that there are mighty hands at work
here.”

“This is gonna make one hell of a story,”
Raven said.

“If we live to tell it,” Otom whispered.

The colt came and nuzzled Wren's hand, and
she stroked its foreheads, feeling the nodule that grew there.

The great hall was silent as Allura slowly
closed the heavy lid of the tome.

For more novels and more
information visit:
www.michaelmood.com/novels

Thank you to my beta readers: Bryan Early,
Eric Schooff, Jim Igielski, Megan Kehl, Adam Stapleton, Jenni Mood,
Marsha Mood, Alan Mood, Jeff Ingebritsen, Callie Ingebritsen, Evan
Riley, Becky Riley, Sara Zanton, and Jenna Mood.