Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  Ahead, the alley opened up to a wider rectangle that the buildings went around. On the walk, the stone was a different color than the rest, and there were other stones in bands set around a central sphere of yellow.

  It took Dynan a moment to realize he was looking at the Sacred Seal, like the one on the back wall of the Temple. Alurn Telaerin had set the seal here as a temporary place of worship while the Sanctuary Temple was being built. Over time, the city had grown up around it. Come to think of it, the site where he’d found the talon had stones that looked just like these.

  There was a noise from behind them. Colin Fryn whipped around, yanking Dynan behind him and then took a step forward. Dynan couldn’t see, shoved into the corner space, the guard’s hand in his chest to keep him there, but then Colin started to reach for the laser rifle. A strange popping sound came. The guard staggered a step.

  “You have to run,” he said, his voice strained and hardly above a whisper as he stumbled another step. He kept Dynan behind him still.

  “Colin?”

  “Now, Dynan. Run, now.”

  The guard’s legs gave out, though he tried to fight it. With his last strength he reached back, even as he fell, and pushed Dynan away.

  “Colin, what...”

  Colin fell to the ground, landing with a thud at Dynan’s feet. Something protruded from the guard’s chest too close to his heart. His eyes were open and unseeing. The thought that he might be dead, that he was dead, slammed through the chaos of thoughts suddenly reeling through Dynan’s mind.

  The same popping sound echoed sharply against the buildings as Dynan tripped another step away, followed by the brief whistle of something cutting through the air. A bolt struck right beside him, bounced off the wall over his right shoulder and clattered to the alley walk. It came to a rest at the heart of the seal.

  Dynan looked up, tearing his gaze from the ashen face of his guard. Two men walked toward him coming in from Brescott Way, and another came from the other direction, and they closed in around him. They all held a half-bow armed with a barbed dart, aimed right at him. Armor piercing, the thought went through his head. The kind only the military had access to, or supposedly.

  Grim satisfaction and a kind of crazed enjoyment lit their eyes as they were about to fire. Dynan thought about his father and the horrifying grief he was about to endure.

  One of the men jerked as if struck, the crossbow he held aimed abruptly toward the sky and fired. The other two reacted similarly the next second, their confusion fueling Dynan’s own. It was a strange way to behave if they meant to kill him.

  At the same time, another man entered the alley, one hand raised, unarmed, covered entirely in black robes. Dynan knew that this man wasn’t with the three attackers, though he didn’t know why he felt that way.

  Fear and confusion lifted, changing to relief and hope. He suddenly felt he had a chance of living through this. And he knew Dain was on his way, dragging on clothes as he raced from Bronwyn’s home. Dain would bring every Palace Guard he passed to this spot, an avenging angel that these three men would learn to fear if they remained.

  One of the men started screaming. He was a crazy looking, bedraggled sort with blond hair going in every direction in matted spikes. His weapon clattered to the street, and he started waving his hands back and forth as if they were on fire. The other two started backing away, even as the first abruptly recovered from whatever had assaulted him, looking at his hands in terror and relief. They all turned to Dynan’s rescuer.

  “Why are you with him?” one of the men said. He had albino white hair, and dead eyes. The other one beside him was disheveled too, brown hair hanging from his head in long, lanky strands. They smelled of sweat and dirt. “You’re one of us.”

  “You protect an abomination.”

  “An aberration that shouldn’t be allowed to exist.”

  Dynan stood shaking before them as his rescuer came abreast of him, stopping above the body of the guard. For a moment, he believed them, afraid his only hope to live would join them.

  “Come with us,” the crazy blond said, still occasionally shaking his hands.

  “Take him and join us.”

  “If you value your life,” Dynan’s rescuer said, and the other three backed away from him even though he hadn’t moved, “you’ll run right now. Do you hear the dogs? They’re coming for you and they’re going to tear you limb from limb.”

  The crazy blond gasped, his hands rising to his head. The other two reacted as if they were in some unspeakable pain. It finally occurred to Dynan what must be happening, that his rescuer was a telepath. Somehow, he was controlling these men; making them believe they were being tortured.

  “Dynan run,” Dain’s thought reached him through the fear that clothed his mind. He seemed so far away. “You have to get away. From all of them. Run. Right now. Run!”

  The others were already moving and for a second Dynan thought getting away with them was a good idea, but he was held in place and then he couldn’t hear Dain anymore. Something stopped him and his head started hurting.

  “I’m sorry,” he was told. The man turned to him, looking up from Colin’s body. Dynan shrank away from him. “I don’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Who are you?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t much time to explain.”

  The man leaned down and picked up one of the discarded crossbows, and then the spent bolt that lay on the seal, looking at the weapon with dread on his face.

  “Dain?”

  “I can’t let you talk to him right now, so you should stop trying. It’ll only make this worse. You have to do something and believe me if there was anyone else who could, we’d send them instead. You’re the only one.” He looked up over Dynan’s head and around him as he spoke, pulling in a breath. “There’s something I have to do first.”

  He didn’t explain what he meant by any of that. He turned on Dynan abruptly and pinned him to the wall with the hand holding the crossbow, while touching his forehead with the other. Dynan expected pain but nothing happened that he could tell while this man seemed locked in deep concentration. He breathed the next instant, blinking rapidly while he struggled to catch his breath.

  “All right,” he said almost to himself. “Well I hope that worked.”

  Dynan tried to reach Dain again but met a wall. He tried to move but something locked his limbs. Dynan felt it in his mind, a kind of mental binding. There was incredible strength there, unbreakable.

  His rescuer shook his head. He seemed reluctant to go on with whatever his plan was, but then he turned, and he pressed the crossbow into Dynan’s chest.

  “What are you doing?” he said, his hands locking around the other’s arms in an attempt to move the bolt off his heart. The certainty he was about to be killed came in, when he thought he was being saved from it only moments ago.

  “You have to find Alurn Telaerin. This is the only way to reach him.”

  “What?”

  “He’s in a place no one living can find. You’re the only one who can go and get back out. Find him. When you do, look for me. Dain and I will get you out. I swear it on my life. I’ll get you back out.” The man closed his eyes, teeth gritted together. “I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  “Wait,” Dynan said and tried to fight him off again, but he pulled the trigger.

  Instantly, Dynan couldn’t breathe. Vision narrowed to a long tunnel. The fact that the immediate bloom of darkening material on his coat was blood didn’t register at first. It was coming out of him so much faster than he thought possible. The tightness in his chest expanded. He could hear in his head the labored strangeness of his heartbeat. He heard Dain screaming after him, not too far away, but Dynan still couldn’t reach him.

  He was caught as he fell by the man who’d just killed him. It didn’t make sense what he said, about finding Alurn Telaerin. It didn’t make sense that this man who was easing him down to the stone looked at him with sorrow and remorse in hi
s eyes.

  Dynan felt hands on him, his pockets searched, as he fought for air. A sense of weight lifted from him. He saw the talon, turned and examined and then tucked away.

  “Better you don’t have this where you’re going.”

  It seemed the world turned over, slanting the buildings at an odd angle. Dynan could smell the rock, hear the gentle hiss of the snow touching down, see the pattern of the Sacred Seal blurring.

  He couldn’t breathe around the blood in his mouth. It dripped out as he coughed. He fought for air and then he heard a groan from deep underneath that came up through the stone. Just like it had on the side of the mountain in an ancient ruin. One of the wide bands of the Sacred Seal rippled. Light evaporated. The dark came in.

  “Find Alurn, Dynan. Find him and bring him back.”

  ~*~

  Chapter 9

  The saturating light dimmed and then darkened, sucked almost instantly into nothing. On his knees beside him, Maralt watched as Dynan pulled in a last gurgling breath, and fought down the sudden urge to be sick. He didn’t win that battle and his stomach emptied.

  Fear of what he’d done combined with the spasms wrenching through him. The High Bishop was wrong. Dynan wouldn’t survive. He wasn’t breathing and when Maralt put his fingers to his neck, there wasn’t a pulse.

  The next instant, Dain arrived.

  He came in fury, and consuming panic. The air around him cracked with a frenzied kind of energy. And he came armed. He had a sword in his hand, the glittering emerald one he’d worn at Dynan’s oath ceremony, perilously sharp and deadly.

  Without thinking, with no time to get into a defensible position, Maralt took the sapphire sword from Dynan. Dain beat him back in a blazing rage that nearly smashed the weapon from his hand.

  Maralt fell back four steps, and managed not to die. He struggled to keep up with the rapid flash of the blade aimed precisely at his heart, stopping each attack only just. Dain shook from grief and fear, but that didn’t diminish the legendary skill he wielded. In desperation, Maralt concentrated and entered his mind.

  “Stop.”

  The command had no effect, except to surprise Dain that someone else could get inside his head. It only made him madder. Maralt fell back again, stumbling into the wall of the building behind him. He saw the tip of the sword coming at him, flashed his own around in time to deflect the weapon, but not far enough. The blade pierced his shoulder, sending a shock of pain through him.

  “Not until you’re dead,” Dain said in a voice quivering with dread and laced with hatred.

  Maralt tried to think through fear and pain for anything that would make Dain stop or slow him down even a little. Blood soaked through his shirt, but he guessed if the wound were fatal he’d already be on the ground. Their swords locked and Maralt thought he might be dead far sooner than he ever imagined.

  “Kill me and your brother won’t survive,” Maralt said aloud and in his mind. “You’re making a mistake. I’m the only one who can bring him back. He’s not dead, and won’t be as long as you listen, Dain.”

  “You put a bolt through his heart, you son of a bitch!”

  He was beyond reasoning with. Maralt saw that and knew what he had to do. There wasn’t a choice. The noise of men shouting reached him, many of them, converging on them. In the split second after Dain disengaged to plunge his sword forward, Maralt reached inside his mind.

  Maralt ripped into him with a force he hadn’t contemplated using before, transferring and magnifying the pain in his shoulder to him. At the same time, Maralt pulled energy off of him. It was all around him the same way it had been around Dynan, laden with of a kind of strength Maralt couldn’t resist taking. For a second, Dain was frozen in place, paralyzed by sudden agony.

  In quick succession, Maralt batted aside Dain’s sword, willing him to succumb. When he fought it, Maralt punched him across the face. When he only staggered back a step, Maralt cracked the sword hilt into the back of his head.

  Maralt almost went down with him when Dain finally crumpled, but fell back against the wall instead. He put a hand to his wound. His fingers came away awash in red and he swore. He hadn’t counted on getting hurt.

  He didn’t have time to waste. Maralt collected the two swords and tucked them into his belt. With a last look at Dynan, who lay still as death on the seal, Maralt yanked Dain up using the right side of his body as much as he could. It still hurt and for a second Maralt wasn’t sure he’d manage it, but he dragged the Prince up and over his shoulder. Maralt started running in a half shuffle that was more a staggering walk, his shoulder throbbing with each step.

  Maralt wondered as he rushed for the street corner, how many others he’d have to turn on his way back to the Temple. He couldn’t be seen, or remembered being seen carrying one of Ambrose Telaerin’s sons off while the other lay dying in an alley.

  He reached the street, peered around the edge of the building to make sure he wouldn’t be rushing into a squad of guards, and then slipped around the corner as Dain’s friends arrived, followed immediately by more than a few Palace Guards at the other end of the alley.

  Brescott Way was still empty, though Maralt knew it wouldn’t be for much longer. More guards were coming in from every direction. He doubted he’d be able to run all the way to the Temple with Dain slung over his shoulder.

  Snow poured from the sky. Running wasn’t possible. Dain didn’t have the same heft as a grown man, but carrying him wasn’t so easy either. He seemed as heavy, and the light around him was just as compelling. When Maralt breathed it in, it gave him strength. He shuffled down the road as fast as he could, trying to ignore a growing desire to take more of it, maybe even all of it for himself.

  He was sickened that he could want such a thing. Maralt didn’t understand where the compunction was coming from. The power Dain held was the thing that kept him alive and kept the world from darkness. Maralt should only want to protect that light, not steal from it.

  He shook his head at himself, put the thought aside and kept going. Ahead at the next street corner, a black transfer pulled up. The emblem of the Temple of Faith was emblazoned on its side.

  “You! Stop!”

  Maralt glanced back over his shoulder and saw a Palace Guard charging after him. Maralt rushed ahead, ignoring the guard long enough to get the transfer door open and Dain thrown in.

  Maralt turned around in time to see a laser rifle being drawn and aimed. He wasn’t wearing a shield; a device that had all but negated the use of laser weapons in battle. Only certain, elite Palace Guards carried them, which meant this guard would use it if he had to. Maralt didn’t know what else he could do to keep from being shot down where he stood. He concentrated.

  “I’m not going to hurt him,” Maralt said quickly, willing the guard to stop.

  Maralt instantly learned that Ralion Blaise was one of the Hounds. He only slowed a little. He wouldn’t have any difficulty running down the street with both twins slung over his shoulder. The level of dedication this man had for his duty overcame the growing pain in his head, caused by Maralt trying to make him do something against his nature. Ralion was fully intent on getting Dain back and didn’t have the slightest compunction against killing anyone who stood in his way.

  “I’m taking him to a place he can be protected,” Maralt said.

  “Step back from the transfer,” Ralion said, his hand reaching for an alert pin attached to his collar.

  “Stop moving,” Maralt said, concentrating harder. The pin, Maralt knew, would send out a signal giving the guard’s exact position. “I’m a monk with the Temple and I stopped to see what the problem was. Dain isn’t in this transfer. You aren’t going to remember my face. I’m wearing robes that keep you from seeing me. Turn around. Now.”

  Ralion winced this time and hesitated, the laser rifle still pointed at Maralt’s head. Ralion had a will unlike most non-telepaths. If Maralt’s concentration faltered at all, the weapon would activate.

  “Your place i
s with Dynan,” Maralt said through clenched teeth. “He’s dying. You should go back to him. Do your job this time and protect him. He’s still in danger. Dain isn’t here. I’m a monk from the Temple.”

  The laser rifle wavered but remained aimed. Maralt thought he couldn’t hold him off any longer, but then Ralion lowered the weapon just as strength evaporated.

  “There’s a priority alert,” the guard said. His hand rose to the side of his head and he looked at the laser rifle as if he didn’t understand why he had it out. “Everyone is asked to get indoors. Be on your way.”

  Maralt nodded and tried not to collapse against the side of the transfer. He watched the guard turn abruptly, walking and then jogging back down the street to the alley. By the time Ralion looked back, Maralt was inside and the transfer moving.

  Momentum knocked him over and he almost ended up chopping himself in half on the exposed swords. He discovered he was shaking and his head was pounding. Maralt looked at Dain, lying unconscious in a pile beside him, inside the swirling yellow flame. Maralt felt better, pulling in whatever energy this was. He was renewed by it, and laughed.

  “Maybe the old man is right about you after all,” Maralt said, half to himself, watching the flame move in eddies around the interior. He looked out the transfer and saw the Sanctuary Temple towering. “I think you’re going to find out. All of us. Just what all this is for.”

  He waved his hand through the glow, cutting the current. The aura had substance, clinging to his fingers like a liquid, though there wasn’t any sense of moisture. Maralt brought his fingers closer but he couldn’t smell any odor to it. Something suggested in the recesses of his mind that going further with this insatiable curiosity would lead to danger or something worse.

  Maralt looked at the substance on his finger, at Dain, at the light around him. He put it on his tongue, tasting it. A sudden surge coursed through his body, and he gasped from it, startled by its intensity. In awe and then in doubt, he looked at the boy lying at his feet and couldn’t believe he had the strength or wisdom to wield such power.