Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  He put both palms into his eyes to try and stop what was coming, and succeeded to a degree.

  “I really wish you were here,” he said of Colin Fryn, but then couldn’t believe what he was thinking.

  The idea of bringing anyone, living or dead into this horror ought to have been the last thing on his mind. He tried hard not to think about Dain, afraid Polen was right about that too. Dynan was alone though, with no one to rely on but himself. He didn’t know how he was supposed to accomplish the task he’d been given or even how he was going to get across this river.

  Nearly drowning at the age of three meant he avoided water at all costs. The rest of his family enjoyed the annual trip to the beach. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to swim. Dain made him learn, and then later, just last year, Dynan decided to get better at it. He forced himself into the pool and practiced, but Dain was always with him. It was the only way he could do it.

  Dynan hugged his knees a little harder. There weren’t any bridges. There wasn’t any wood to make a raft, or even a few boards to string together to hold onto. He doubted the bodies would float. Dain wasn’t there.

  It hurt more than was endurable to cry without crying. It made him want to pull his eyes out of his head to get rid of the agony.

  “Bad idea,” he said.

  Dain would know what to do. Rash, maybe, but Dain was fearless too. He was smarter, stronger, better at everything. Dynan didn’t begrudge him that, wishing he could trade places with Dain permanently. He’d be King instead, and be better at it.

  Dynan looked at the flowing blood, a deep brownish red, the current swirling in places, but mostly sluggishly meandering. He wished for even a second of Dain’s courage. His brother wouldn’t think anything of this, except as an impediment to the objective.

  “I don’t know why I have to cross the damn thing anyway,” Dynan said. “Getting to the other side doesn’t count as a good enough reason. Maybe finding Alurn isn’t good enough. Well nothing seems good enough if I put it that way. What the hell.”

  He closed his eyes against another round of gagging nausea that was more painful than tearless crying. He wondered if he’d make it across without taking a drink, suddenly afraid if he did, he’d never escape the place. He’d stay here, damned for all time.

  “All right,” he told himself, trying to drill up the courage to get on with it before he really was driven to pull his eyes out. In this place, nothing horrible was impossible. “You’ve been in the pool at home dozens of times now. It’ll be like that. Well not really, but...All right, really, it’s not like that at all. It doesn’t matter. You have to do it anyway. Just start. You can do this.”

  “Great. Now I’m talking to myself.”

  “At least I’m talking, so shut the fuck up, already.”

  “And I’m telling myself to shut up. I guess that means I’ve lost my mind too.”

  “How about you just stop talking. Stop talking. Boy, I didn’t think I’d ever hear myself say that. Just get on with it, would you? All right, I’m going. Right now. I’m going to get in this nasty river. And I swear, by the Gods, I will never swim across or in anything, ever again. Ever.”

  The bank was slippery with little to grab hold of that wasn’t a grisly mess. He went up to his waist faster than he wanted, and when his feet hit the bottom and slipped, he almost didn’t stop himself from going under. He dug his fingers into the muck, regaining his balance slowly.

  Fumes rose around him, gagging in their intensity, filling his nose and mouth with the taste of rotting flesh. He couldn’t stop breathing. He started throwing up again. He retreated backward, defeated already, but the bank was too steep to climb out.

  His sole purpose became getting to the other side as quickly as possible. His boots weighed him down and he thought he should have gotten rid of them. The bed of the river was uneven. Up to his waist in blood, it was hard to walk without tripping, and too shallow to swim. He couldn’t tell what he was walking on until they started bobbing to the surface.

  Bodies. Heads. Dismembered limbs.

  “Oh come on! Okay, just don’t look at them. What is that? Another head. And a hand to go with it. That's nice. Oh, wait a minute. They're...Shit...”

  It was his imagination, he told himself. “No, they're not. They are not. They are not alive. ”

  The hands really weren’t trying to grab hold of him, but the next instant he saw one clutching his shoulder, latched on like a leach.

  Dynan started rushing, not caring what he was stepping on as the grasping bodies surrounded him. He shoved past them, half swimming, half running across the riverbed, kicking up more of them as he went. Before too long the whole river was covered with them. He was only halfway across.

  He wrenched off the clinging hands, throwing them away from him. They came back and they started to pull. At the same time the bottom fell out from under him. He went in up to his neck.

  Panic set in. These things, dead, mutilated and somehow sentient were trying to drown him. It was his greatest fear.

  Something latched onto his leg, crawled up to his knee, tightening its grip as it went. He had the presence of mind to pull in a lungful of air the second before he was pulled under.

  He kicked and thrashed against it, trying to ignore the need for air that grew more desperate by the moment. Dynan opened his eyes, a mistake, and couldn’t see at all. He couldn’t tell which way was up.

  He remembered Dain telling him to relax and he’d float, but Dynan couldn’t follow the advice. The next instant he was going to breathe and fill his lungs with blood. The hands on him rose up to his shoulders. He tried one last time to get them off, and met a whole body.

  He head broke the surface and a hand clamped over his mouth right after he dragged in a gasp of air, right after he made sure he wasn't going to suck in a mouthful of blood.

  “Don’t make a sound,” a voice hissed in his ear - after it was too late.

  Faulkin Yeld shook his head at him and pulled him back under. Just before he had to squeeze his eyes closed, Dynan saw a wraith wheel around, aiming for them.

  Relief flooded through him anyway, even as the presence of the wraith increased to a pitch, swept over them, and then lessened. Faul tugged on his arm, and met him at the surface.

  “One more time,” Faul said. “Swim toward shore. And whatever you do, kid, don’t drink it. You’ll be puking it back up for days. Pol is already across.”

  “How?”

  “There’s more than one hole out of that tunnel. When you get to the shore, get out and get under cover. The Six are half-blinded by the taken, but you’re a damn magnet to them. Go under.”

  The news that Polen was all right made it easier. The wraith turned another way the next time up, and didn’t come back. Polen met him on the bank.

  As Dynan reached a hand up he saw for a second in Polen’s face something that made him hesitate. Polen had his teeth together and breathed through his nose. There was something else in his eyes too, but Dynan was so happy to see him, the realization didn’t come until it was too late.

  Polen reached for Dynan, taking his hand. Abruptly, he melded into Adiem Telaerin.

  Dynan was yanked from the river. Another hand descended to take him by the throat. The Six stood around in a disjointed circle, some as men, some as wraiths coming in to land. He wouldn’t escape them this time. Everything Polen Forb had feared would happen. They’d get all three of them, Alurn, Dynan and Dain, and they’d release the demon on the world.

  Adiem reached down and drew a finger along side Dynan’s face, grinning in delight, and showed him what was coming.

  ~*~

  Chapter 15

  There was a lot of screaming.

  There was darkness, pain and anguish combined.

  There were visions.

  People were packed into a space not large enough to hold them. Thousands of them jostled for a more comfortable position when there weren’t any places left to stand. They walked over top of others w
ho’d given up. Every one of them was naked to the elements. It rained in some places, snowed in others, both falling red. There was hail and lightning, all squeezed together on a plain of misery.

  Dynan knew he would spend the rest of eternity there.

  The terrible vision faded. The sound of moaning stopped. There came the sensation of movement and awareness of being carried on something. He was shaking again while the rocks slid by. They were trudging along a stone path, climbing up into the mountains, though Dynan didn’t know which mountains.

  The rock was as red as the river. Gray light was sucked from the sky, replaced by black swirling inky darkness that obscured sight. An occasional patch of light came through and told him what caused the dark. Adiem smiled down at him.

  Dynan instantly moved to roll off the cot carried by four untaken men, but he was shoved back down. Adiem shook his head. “It’s best if you conserve your energies. You’ll need them later. The river crossing took quite a bit out of you.”

  Dynan looked down, following Adiem’s gaze. A black worm the size of his finger had attached to his hand. It was fat and dug into skin. When Dynan tried to pull it off, skin started to come with it, and it wouldn’t let go. He saw another on his other hand, another on his wrist, under his shirtsleeve. He felt one at his neck. They were all over him. He could feel one sinking into his leg.

  Adiem laughed when in a panic Dynan kept trying to get them off. “They don’t come off,” he said, pushing him down on the cot again. “Not for you.”

  Dynan tried to jerk away when Adiem took him by the wrist, but the effort was useless. Adiem took hold of the black worm, twisting it between his fingers. The back of it detached, but the head remained imbedded. There was an inner shell to the thing, and as Dynan watched, it started to fill up again.

  Adiem was absorbed with the other part, rolling it between his fingers for a second before he suddenly put it in his mouth. Adiem closed his eyes in obvious pleasure. He threw his head back, laughing.

  “Now that is an exquisite delicacy, my young friend.” He leaned over Dynan, pressing him into the cot. “And now you have some idea what you are here for. You’ll be feeding us for quite some time to come. Ages, in fact.”

  He plucked off another worm, and popped it into his mouth like he was eating a piece of candy. Dynan shrank away from him, thrashing against the iron grip on his wrist. Adiem took another of the worms, bit it in half and tossed it over his shoulder where a pack of spike-headed, hairless dogs fell to fighting over the morsel.

  Adiem laughed at him, and then let him go.

  The next instant, strands of rope threaded around Dynan’s arms and legs, moving by some invisible command to tie him to the cot so he couldn’t escape.

  Adiem was in his head the next moment, showing Dynan more horrors, and then tortured him with visions of water and food he couldn’t get to. Hot knives, barbed spikes, and hooks sank into him. In his mind, his arms and legs were torn off one by one.

  The dark was always there, but the dark didn’t bring any relief. So he traveled, strapped to a cot of tattered cloth, screaming and thrashing from terror and pain.

  He didn’t know how long they moved that way with Adiem walking beside him while Dynan lay in writhing agony, only that it went on and on. So when they finally stopped, and he was set on the ground and released, anticipation of worse to come filled his mind.

  As the realization came that he wasn’t being tortured anymore, anger replaced fear, and a kind of resolve that started deep down within. He thought if he could do nothing else in this long nightmare, he’d not give them any more satisfaction. He wouldn’t cooperate. He wouldn’t help them do whatever it was they wanted without fighting them, even if fighting them didn’t work.

  There wasn’t any purpose to being afraid anymore. He’d gotten through the horror of the river, and reasoned he could get through anything else after that. Of course it was easier thought than accomplished. Not knowing what was next didn’t help tenuous courage, but he pulled himself up from the cot cautiously, body taut, ready for whatever.

  A sheltered cove of rock situated among the greater boulders of the mountain surrounded them. There remained the half-light of monochromatic gray mixing with the ruddy color of the stone. Around Adiem the dark gathered like a cloak.

  Half amused and with a look of curiosity, Adiem watched him. The four men who’d carried the cot were fawning over him at his feet. The dogs followed him. Adiem waved his hand impatiently at them all and they scampered away, crying in their fear of him. They hid themselves in a corner of boulders.

  “What do you want with me,” Dynan said, hoping he could find a way out of it, or at least be ready for it. He gestured to the worms still hanging off him. “Other than the snacks?”

  Adiem laughed, a sound that sent a shiver up Dynan’s spine. It made him want to hide in a hole too. “Well, in a short time, shorter than you’ll like, you’re going to call your brother and bring him to us. And then we’re going to fulfill a thousand year prophecy that I foresaw so long ago. One of you alive so that we may slake the altar with living blood. One of you dead. That would be you. You’ll spend the rest of existence holding open the gateway. It isn’t going to be very pleasant for you, but that’s what you get when you’re a son of Alurn.”

  “All of this is so the demon can get out,” Dynan said, trying not to sound terrified of it.

  “Yes.”

  “The Gods won’t let you.”

  Adiem scoffed. “They can barely contain us as it is. This time will be different, little Princeling. There are six of us. It’s why you were born and why others were born to counter our numbers, but there aren’t enough of you. After we’re finished of course, there won’t be any. Your ignorance weakens you. No one bothered to prepare you for this. I suspect no one even told you what you are. It’s the way they operate. So no, the Gods won’t be capable of responding. You see, we’re going to kill one of them. That will change things quite a bit.”

  “Kill one of the Gods?” Dynan said. “How do you...It isn’t possible. You’re only going to succeed in bringing them down here to destroy you.”

  “You’re wrong. You’ll see. Soon.”

  “I’m not going to do it,” Dynan said.

  “You will.” Adiem seemed so much more confident of his answers than Dynan was of his.

  He shook his head though. “I’m not going to bring Dain here. He won’t come.”

  “He’ll come. He thinks he can save you.”

  “I’ll tell him not to,” Dynan said, hoping against hope that maybe this time Dain would listen. “He isn’t stupid. He’ll see the risks. He’ll see right through you. But that’s only if you get through to him without me.”

  “He’ll come when he sees what’s happening to you,” Adiem said, and smiled about it.

  Dynan thought he was probably right, which meant he had to convince Dain, somehow, as quickly as possible not to believe anything he was seeing. If Dynan could get through to him, he might be able to stop him. He just had to get him to believe that it was all a trap, and coming would only make things worse.

  Dynan had to stop himself from thinking that Dain being here with him wouldn’t be worse. For a split second he thought having Dain here might be the only way to save them all.

  “He’ll come,” Adiem said. “You want him here.”

  “What happened to you?” Dynan asked to get him off the subject of his brother. “Polen said you didn’t start out this way. You and Alurn used to care about each other.”

  Adiem stopped smiling, but his teeth still showed under a snarling glare. Dynan backed away from him. He wanted to run, but the wall of rock stopped him.

  “Alurn never cared about me. Ever. He only cared about amassing as much power as he could. He didn’t care what he did to get it. Do you know how many people died because of him? And when I found out he was being used as a means to an end, when I found out the truth, I warned him. Did he listen to me? No, he came back with these wild excus
es about how I was causing all of it. And then he made a pact that would allow him to survive, but would leave me here. Every time they found one of us, they put us in here, one by one. Look around you. Don’t you want to get out?”

  Adiem took him by either side of his face for a second, his breath smelling of death. “You of all people should know you can’t believe everything you hear. Such a trusting soul. Now, no more talk of Alurn. We’re going to sit here quietly and wait.”

  “It’s funny,” Dynan said before Adiem could step away. “No one knows who you are. No one knows Alurn even had a brother. And here you sit, still trying to be better than him, to take the Kingdom he made that’s lasted a thousand years. I almost feel sorry for—”

  Excruciating pain cut off his voice. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t get any air to make a sound. His body jerked in spasms, but he was held on his feet. Through the haze of agony, he thought maybe he’d just succeeded in ruining their plans.

  Everything was exploding from the inside, and being a lump of charred nothing wouldn’t bring Dain here. Dynan held onto that thought, concentrated on it as hard as he knew how so that he wouldn’t start begging Adiem to stop.

  It didn’t take more than a second longer for thoughts of self-sacrifice to vanish. Dynan knew he’d do anything they wanted him to, and he wanted more than anything to tell Adiem he’d changed his mind, except he still couldn’t breathe to form the words.

  He felt the ground then. He hit his head against it when he fell, which meant he’d been let go. He managed to gasp out the one word he’d been trying to say, at the same time he realized the pain had already stopped.

  He lay shaking for a moment longer, afraid it was going to start up again, but then there were hands on him, gently picking him up. It was so incongruous to what he’d just gone through, it forced his eyes to focus.