Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  It occurred to him as he went down that he ought to be more careful what he wished for.

  The air whistled past him, freezing his breath. He kept expecting to hit the bottom at any moment. It was black as pitch with nothing around him. No walls to try and grab hold of. Nothing to slow him down. More moments ticked by. He knew if he didn’t stop falling soon, landing would kill him.

  “Dynan?” Dain’s presence reached him and fear made Dynan grab hold of the only thing available to him, bringing Dain with him. “What the hell?”

  Dynan meant to go to him. He was capable of it. Mentally leaving his body to join his brother was almost second nature. They were telepaths so it was easy. They even traded places on occasion, but Dynan didn’t want that. He just wanted to get out of himself before he ended up broken to bits at the foot of a dark pit. He wasn’t completely sure how to do it without the other thing happening, and maybe killing Dain instead.

  “Dynan, just take my hand,” Dain said. “I’ll get us both out. Take my hand.”

  But Dynan hesitated and then he struck.

  ***

  A high-pitched whine filtered through the constant repetition of his name, both in his head and from above. The ability to breathe returned in gasping increments and with air filling his lungs, the realization came he was alive. It didn’t feel so good, but the alternative was worse. Right then, Dynan was happy to feel anything.

  He blinked his eyes open, and after they cleared, he saw Colin leaning into the hole, looking down at him.

  “I’m all right,” Dynan said to the guard, only the words didn’t come out very loud. “I think I’m all right.”

  Dain was there too, only in Dynan’s head, looking out through his eyes at the distant opening. The hole had opened close to a wall, so it didn't seem like more of it would give way. “What happened?”

  Dynan couldn’t answer. He tentatively wriggled a few fingers. He raised his arm and nothing screamed at him. It didn’t feel like anything was broken. He couldn’t see near at hand at all though, but then remembered he had a lamp box on his belt.

  “Pop is landing,” Dain told him and Dynan could hear the sound of the transport coming in. “And he’s freaking out.”

  “Just tell them to drop down a rope,” Dynan said, and lifted his other arm, and then both at the same time. The light box was still clipped to his belt and undamaged. It was an amazing relief when it came on, giving him a little square of light against the inky darkness.

  “Dynan!”

  He couldn’t yell an answer back, so he flashed the light at the opening that now had his father looking down. For a moment, his younger sister peered down too, blonde hair cascading down around her face. She was about to turn eleven in a few months. Dynan hadn’t known Shalis was with their father.

  “Oh that’s a long way,” she said, looking worried, and then someone pulled her back from the opening.

  “Tell them I’m all right.”

  “I already did,” Dain said. “Pop has to read it though. I’ll message Colin instead. Can you stand?”

  “Maybe,” Dynan said and then thought he should probably try. He moved his legs around first and then rolled to his side. He found out what hurt then.

  “Your back? You land on it? How far down are you anyway?”

  “Twenty, thirty kem. I don’t know.” Dynan groaned as he moved, guessing that every muscle in his back was pulled or bruised.

  “On the bright side, maybe you’ll get out of the ceremony tomorrow,” Dain said.

  “Nothing shy of death, he said the other day, so I doubt it.” Dynan had already hinted as directly as he dared that he didn’t want to go through with it. His father didn’t pay attention to that, being far too concerned with what a cancellation would look like and what an inconvenience it would be to the invitees if the ceremony didn’t happen.

  “I’d say this counts.”

  Dynan made it up to hands and knees. His back still hurt, but it was less than before. His head hurt too and there was a knot growing at the base of his skull. He touched the lump as part of the inspection and found out he shouldn’t.

  There were large stones from the collapse littering the ground he could have landed and died on. A sense of euphoria swept over him. He hadn’t broken anything or damaged any internals. Of course, he wasn’t completely sure about that yet. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  “Great.”

  Dynan turned the lamp on his surroundings. It was a cavern he landed in, made by man, not nature and the light barely cut the darkness. He sat back on his legs, testing what hurt and how much. He spit the blood out - it felt like he bit his tongue.

  Right where he spit, the ground bulged upward as if it was boiling water. For a second he thought it was some sort of flowing liquid. Another rumble erupted all around him. Dust and dirt rained down with clumps of snow from the hole above. After back-peddling away, something between curiosity and revulsion drew him back.

  “Now you’re just being stupid,” Dain said.

  Dynan looked over his left shoulder where Dain stood, blond, blue-eyed and smirking as usual. With the ability to communicate telepathically, there came this visual projection. No one else could see him, of course, but for Dynan there was a physical sense that Dain was right there, one hand on his shoulder.

  The rumbling eased, changing to a more distant, safer crack of rock against rock, but the ground kept puking dirt. A rope whistled down near at hand, a few coils thudding to the ground. When it started twirling around, Dynan knew Colin was on the way, but looking up wasn’t yet an option.

  There was something on the ground anyway, more compelling than the guard’s descent. A black claw, regurgitated from within, lay on top of the dirt. It rolled along with the brown river as if pushed by an invisible force until it was in front of Dynan where he knelt.

  “Okay, that’s just weird,” Dain said. “Seriously, don’t pick that up.”

  The smell of charred wood filled Dynan’s nostrils - the same smell from just before he cut his finger. Something else about the talon reeked, more a feeling than an odor. It came as a sensation, too hard to define, that sent a shiver of warning through him.

  This was a mystery he couldn’t resist. Dynan picked up the talon.

  The black claw was almost as long as his hand, and curved to a sharp point. A ridge ran on either side. It didn’t belong here, whatever it came off of. There wasn’t a history of large animals of the kind that would own something of this size. Not on any of Cobalt’s three planets. Not anywhere in the six Realms that made up Brittallia even. The black gleamed dully in the weak light.

  A flash of thought entered his mind neither his nor Dain’s, whispering that this was why he was here. Finding it was why he’d come on the expedition to the mountain ruins. It was why he’d cut his finger. Why the ground had opened and dropped him here. It was in the world now and having it would change everything.

  “What?” Dain demanded in a voice full of uncertainty, even bordering on fear. “Did you hear that? Who’s here?”

  “No one,” Dynan said, turning the talon over in his hand.

  Colin landed then, and reached for him, but Dain moved in, taking over.

  “You need to get him out of here,” Dain said, speaking through Dynan and confusing the guard. “Right now. Don’t wait for them to decide how it’s to be done.”

  Colin pondered for a moment, looking at Dynan closer. “Dain?”

  “Right now, Colin,” Dain said. “Get him out of here.”

  “You know it’s really creepy when you do this? Right? And you're not supposed to. No, don’t go on. I know. I’ll get him out, but I have to tell them up top—”

  “I already did,” Dain said, but then Dynan managed to reassert himself and push Dain out. “Colin, I’m all right. Dain is a little spooked is all.”

  “I gathered,” Colin said, but he held up a hand while he read from the comboard. “He’s not alone in that. Can you stand?”

  “Yes.”

/>   “Come on then. Are you hurt? Dain says no on the comboard, but I thought I’d ask you.”

  “Just get him out of here, will you?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Dain. I’d like to hear it from your brother, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m all right,” Dynan said when Dain eased off.

  Colin nodded and helped him up, looking at the talon Dynan still held with curiosity, but then he was hooking him onto the rope using an extra belt and clip.

  “Hold onto the rope and hold onto me,” the guard said, winding a few coils around his arm after he’d clipped onto a different spot.

  “How are they going to pull us both up?” Dynan asked, tucking the talon into a pocket before taking a section of the line and gripping the guard by the shoulders. It hurt to move that much.

  “There are enough people up there to manage. Melgan Lon and your father are there. They aren’t going to drop us.” Colin smiled to reassure, put his arm around Dynan as if it were a clamp, and then called up, “Ready here. Pull.”

  ~*~

  Chapter 2

  Carryn Adaeryn looked out from the tower window of the Sanctuary Temple at the glistening night. To her right, the lights of Rianamar fanned outward and to her left the vast blanket of the Wythe Sea extinguished them. There were clouds coming in to obliterate the moon.

  Her gaze lifted from the darkness of the water. The Telaerin Palace stood in a blaze of light on a jut of land carved out a few million years ago from the Wyvern River’s run through the middle of what was now the Capitol City of Cobalt. The churn of waves against the shore came in a rhythmic cadence and the more distant boom of the sea striking the cliffs a large drum. Carryn took a deep breath and pulled in salt saturated air. The bitter cold felt good to her.

  Carryn leaned against the stone windowsill, letting her thoughts wander. When she needed to calm her mind, this room, with its spectacular view was the place she came. After hearing about the harrowing ordeal Dynan had survived in the mountains, in a shifting of all things, she definitely needed calming.

  She should have seen the danger. She was a Seer. Since the time she was ten and Dynan was five, it was her job to look after him. When there was trouble, she saw it before it happened, and could avert the danger. An anonymous note to the Palace with a warning, and both boys found whatever scheme they dreamed up - very usually an escape attempt - undone. Usually, anyway.

  There wasn’t anything they did in all those years that she wasn’t aware of if there was even the remotest possibility they’d be hurt. The pod crash on the mountain; she’d seen and a message went to the Palace, telling them about the stolen pod. There was an attempt on their lives last year that even the King didn’t know about, thwarted by the secret order she belonged to. No, Ambrose Telaerin wouldn’t let his sons out of his sight if he knew the extent of peril they faced, much less allow them to go up onto a mountainside, even if it was a mountain just behind the Palace, for a day of archeological digging.

  She should have seen. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t. Carryn pulled in another lungful of the frigid air.

  She waited through the day after the shifting that only affected that one mountain range Dynan was on, for the announcement that the King would postpone the oath taking ceremony his son was set to take part in – tomorrow. She found herself questioning the wisdom of His Majesty’s decision when the bulletin stated the ceremony would go on as planned.

  She supposed it couldn’t be avoided unless Dynan was very seriously injured. He wasn’t – a relief – and cancelling wasn’t practical when three thousand of Cobalt’s most prominent leaders were set to be in attendance.

  She wondered if Dynan would make it through it, considering his aversion to being in public.

  Sudden pressure behind her eyes jolted her out of her thoughts and warned her of a coming vision. She tried to prepare herself like she did every time these bits of the future ripped into her, and reached blindly for the stone sill to steady the room.

  The King of Cobalt knelt before his throne, shackled to the floor. Blood dripped from his wrists where metal dug into skin and then down his fingers. He watched, powerless, while his young daughter was raped.

  They weren’t men responsible for her torture. They weren’t human, but creatures of the dark, some reptilian, some bestial, on all fours, salivating as they waited in line for their turn at her.

  Carryn recoiled from it. Pain blossomed as a result and she fell. The vision shifted.

  The city below her appeared on an overcast day. The pristine white buildings it was famous for stood in twisted ruins. Plumes of black smoke billowed up to choke her. Coiling darkness wound around the tower, like a living thing, tightening its grip until the stones began to crumble. The walls crashed to the floor and then through it.

  Carryn fell with the tower, the wave of rubble carrying her to the Temple altar.

  A thousand pieces of colored glass shards from the great seal spread through the apse like a carpet. On the altar, one of the King’s twin sons lay tied by undulating coils piercing his skin. A man stood over him, a thin blade in hand. For a moment, Carryn thought he was the High Bishop, but then she recognized her brother, Maralt.

  To her horror, he cut into the wrist of the Prince, took his hand and raised it. Maralt held a cup to catch the flow, but it wasn’t blood that streamed from the wound. A white, radiant liquid ran from wrist to elbow and into the cup to fill it. She realized what it was – the essence of a telepath’s soul.

  Black, rough-hewn pillars surrounded her as the vision shifted again. Crushing terror dimmed Carryn’s eyesight. She heard herself whimpering. A contained area of darkness stood framed by an archway of stone like the entrance to a cave. She knew the Void lay on the other side.

  Another altar stood at the heart of the encircling pillars. The other twin writhed upon its surface. Another man stood over him. His back was to her, but again, he seemed like her brother. He held a thin knife in one hand, and in the other a brilliant white light streamed through clenched fingers.

  More coiling strands rose from the stone floor by the altar, plunging into the struggling prince. The will to fight slowly ebbed until he was motionless. At first Carryn didn’t understand why his blood ran red, but then the answer came. He’d been brought here alive.

  Here was the cause of the destruction of the world. The soul of the Chosen had been taken, his soul held in the hand of a monster. The blood of the Chosen flowed on the demon’s altar at the gateway to his realm. It was the prophecy come true. It was the prophecy she’d been born to stop. She and her brother both.

  The veil boiled outward toward her. Consuming darkness reached a hand to her. The ground shook as the drops of blood ran down the face of the altar. The face of evil was coming. The anti-God. A thing of such power, it would split the ground it walked. It was the demon, Belial.

  Carryn turned from the horror that preceded it, trying to escape. Her arms were pinned to her side and she struggled against the smothering wave of darkness that held her.

  “I’ve got you.”

  She found her voice and heard herself screaming, the sound echoing around the small space of the tower.

  “Carryn, it’s all right. I’ve got you. It’s all right.”

  She opened her eyes to find her brother beside her, picking her up into his arms from where she’d crumpled under the window. She shook and her heart pounded against her chest. She couldn’t catch her breath.

  “It’s all right,” Maralt said again, giving her another squeeze before loosening the grip he had on her. Slowly her vision cleared, returning her to the tower.

  “I was at the gate,” she said, leaning against him. She clutched his brown monk’s robes in her fist. “It’s happened.”

  “Nothing has happened,” Maralt said, and propped her up against the wall. “Look around you. We’re here. We’re safe. No creepy crawlies running around.”

  Carry shook her head at his tone. “They were raping her,” she said.
“And Dynan and Dain—”

  “Carryn, it hasn’t happened. Shalis is fine. Her brothers are fine—”

  “It’s going to,” she said. “It’s going to happen.”

  “I’m not going to let it,” he said, making her release the grip she had on him before enclosing her hand in his. “I know what you saw. It upset you, but you’ve seen it before.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Exactly like this, but you don’t remember. I’ve taken it from you, Carryn,” Maralt said, tilting his head as he looked at her, raising his eyebrows the way he did when he knew he was right. “The memory of it.”

  Carryn gasped and knew the truth. Sometimes the future she was shown was too terrible to endure and not go insane. Her brother’s telepathic talents were different from her own. Countless times before, he removed her memory.

  “Did you see the demon?” he asked, watching her.

  “No,” she said, remembering now how many times he’d asked the same thing. She pushed herself up against the stone, wincing. Sometimes she felt an old woman when she was barely twenty-one. “I saw enough. I saw you.”

  “Same as always, having a nice drink,” he said and smiled. “Well that’s something. You didn’t see the evil nasty. I won’t take the memory this time unless you want, but you know, he’s likely to insist.”

  Maralt meant the High Bishop, Gradyn Vall, who was probably on his way up the tower stairs. He might yell at her for that. It was a long way to climb for a man of his extreme age.

  “I already told him you were all right,” Maralt said, answering her thoughts. “He’ll want to see the vision for himself, but I can show him.”

  “I don’t know how you stand it,” she said, knowing already she didn’t want to keep the vision.

  “It’s what big brothers are for.”

  “You’re barely three minutes older,” she said. “I don’t think that counts.”

  “Of course it does,” he said and smiled.

  She shuddered as she saw Shalis Telaerin again, splayed across her father’s overturned throne, her eyes distant. She wasn’t screaming or struggling to get away anymore. She knew she couldn’t.