Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  “The Gods will release you. I talk to them quite a bit. They aren’t so cruel or so weak.” He looked up and saw Polen, Faul and Grint watching. “I won’t leave any of you here.”

  “You will if it means we stop this,” Polen said. “Don’t be a fool.”

  “I’m not listening to you, old man,” Alurn said. He glanced at Dynan. “I’m not really known for it. You’re coming home, or we’re all staying for the party.”

  Dynan decided to interrupt. It was time to get on with it. “What about the demon?”

  “This isn’t its lair. Close, but not quite. We’re at its gate but not in the Void. If we’re lucky, Adiem won’t be able to summon it. They have to have the strength for it and despite what they’ve been saying, they don’t. They used it up already bringing Dain here. They could get it back from you and I. Don’t let them take you.”

  “Could you let her go now?” he said and then forced the issue before the kissing started up. “Just wait until I have Dain. He won’t mind so much.”

  Alurn laughed at that but didn’t argue or stop Dynan from pushing him. “You’ll understand one—”

  “Don’t,” Dynan said. He heard that enough already. Alurn could probably tell he’d never been with a girl.

  “I’m the one who set it up that way.”

  “What? Why?”

  Alurn shrugged at that. “Some things you just have to wait for. Go get your brother.”

  Dynan let that go, but hesitated a moment longer, afraid Alurn was wrong and nothing they did would work. It was a fact though that Dain’s life depended on Dynan. He decided not to think about the rest of the world. He could save his brother.

  Dynan concentrated and reached for him.

  Pain assaulted him. His arms were on fire where they’d been cut. There were other strains too, injuries that joined together into a dull throb. He expected screaming, but for a moment there was only silence, as if he’d entered an empty shell.

  Dynan blinked, eyes focusing on the pillars that towered above him. He turned to look for the opening Alurn had shown him, but that side of the shelf was obscured by darkness. That told him the cave was there in the heaviest shadows.

  He was weighed down by something, glued to the altar, but set his mind to break through it, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself up. The sense of lethargy increased even as he managed to get one shoulder off the stone face. Muscles tore, sending more pain through his arms, down his back, everywhere, but he didn’t stop. If he didn’t get off the thing, that was it.

  He forced his hand over to the edge, able to use the side for leverage. Dynan didn’t actually care if he managed to stand up. Rolling, prying, falling off. It didn’t matter as long as he managed the off part. He pried his other hand free and then moved a leg over the side. He kept telling himself it would work, the pain would stop when he was free. He rolled onto his side and no further, frozen in place. He couldn’t move.

  “Dain,” he said in desperation. “You have to help me. Dain!”

  “Ruuuuuuunnnn! Run, run, run, run. Ruuuuuuunnnn!”

  Suddenly, that’s all Dynan could hear. He couldn’t stop it either. He had to ignore it just like Alurn said, but that too was difficult since Dain was right there. Dynan started separating from him, which would have put him on the shelf and attracted the Six or worse.

  Dynan didn’t know what else to do, feeling the passage of time, still stuck to the altar, unable to reach Alurn. His strength seemed like it was draining away the longer he listened to the screams. Shutting Dain out wasn’t possible. The next alternative came to him.

  Dynan turned inward, searching for the voice, the thought that was his brother. It took longer than he had to spare. Dynan finally found him though, curled up in a corner without light, trying to hide from the fear the demon had put into his mind, moaning from terror while his own screams echoed through a hollow chamber.

  Dain didn’t know him. Dynan started to understand what Alurn meant and then what to do about it. He wondered if Dain would remember and hoped not.

  Before Dain could run, Dynan grabbed him up, trying to contain his panic, talking to him, hoping to ease the terrible sense of fear that gripped him. Nothing worked and Dynan knew he was out of time to be gentle about it. Dain didn’t show any awareness of it when Dynan started apologizing to him, right before he cracked his head into the surrounding stone just hard enough to knock him out.

  He cringed as he eased Dain down to the ground, a dirty stone floor that made him wonder what kind of prison he’d put himself in. Dynan looked around at the plain, windowless room and thought he might be safe here.

  He went back in full control of Dain’s body.

  It was different from the times they had switched places. There was always awareness of himself to his own body. That connection now existed to Dain. Dynan could feel the difference between them, sensing how Dain was physically stronger, more coordinated and way faster.

  “Everything I need to be right now,” he said, never happier over his brother’s obsession with being better. With Dain’s strength combined with his own, Dynan broke the invisible bonds that held him to the altar and stood.

  Dynan found Alurn in the cave. He took Alurn by the hand and pulled him in so that all three of them were together.

  “This is just what they want, you know,” Alurn said.

  “Which is why I’m not going to stay,” Dynan said. “Be careful with my brother, will you?”

  Alurn nodded to that and Dynan left him, finding it harder than he expected to let go and turn himself back into an insubstantial shade.

  Almost the same second, Adiem appeared right in front of Dynan, and reached for him.

  Alurn yanked Dynan back. For a moment, the two faced each other, absolute despite in their eyes. Polen was right again. Even looking exactly alike, it was hard to tell they were brothers.

  And then they started fighting.

  Dynan cringed away, stunned by the ferocity with which they attacked each other. Neither had a weapon, but that didn’t matter. Bolts of light energy came from their hands, sometimes striking but more often deflected away by an invisible shield that surrounded them both. The noise of it was incredible, sounding very much like lightning, only going off right beside Dynan. One jagged bolt shot over his shoulder. His ears popped and started ringing.

  Something, an arm, wrapped around his waist and yanked him down to the ground.

  “You do attract trouble like maggots to meat, boy,” Polen said in his ear and then slung him around behind a pillar. “Those energy bolts are what sent me here. Take one from the wrong side and it’ll be straight to the pit for you. A place I hear is worse than here if you can imagine that.”

  Fadril skidded into them, her bow at the ready. “How about next time, you let us know what you’re going to do before you do it?”

  “There isn’t going to be a next time,” Polen said, ducking as another light bolt blasted by them.

  “How about you tell me about things like this before they start exploding over my head?” Dynan said at the same time.

  Her lips pressed tightly together, the Queen ignored that challenge, peering around the pillar for a shot to take. Alurn and Adiem were moving around each other too much and stood too close.

  “If they change—” Polen said, “—we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”

  “I don’t know that he still can, Pol,” Fadril said. “He is dead, after all.”

  “He has a body now,” Pol said. “And being dead hasn’t stopped Adiem.”

  “It’s a different power, an evil power Adiem uses. It’s different and you know it.”

  Dynan didn’t know what they were talking about. He was starting to wonder where the other five versions of Adiem were. He wondered too how they were going to get out with Alurn and Adiem locked in battle.

  Dynan peered around the edge of the pillar, the increased pounding of his heart warning him that things were about to change, and as he looked, the entire she
lf abruptly filled with creatures of the damned, the dogs he’d seen before and other things even more grotesque and twisted.

  The other divisions of Adiem came next.

  “We need a new plan,” Polen said.

  Dynan didn’t wait to hear one, knowing that time was at an end. Fear shook through him. He didn’t think he’d survive, but there wasn’t anything else to do. He took a knife from Fadril, dodging out of her grasp when she tried to stop him, and then he walked from behind the pillar. He heard Polen swearing behind him, but they followed, along with Grint and Faulkin. Dynan shook his head.

  “Get her away from me,” he said. “All of you, get as close to Alurn as you can. I know what I’m doing, Pol.”

  He glanced at Pol to make sure he would listen. If they weren’t where they needed to be, they risked being left here. That was something Dynan didn’t want to contemplate.

  Polen nodded sharply, and then charged into battle against a pack of dogs. Grint and Faulkin were behind him, keeping Fadril between them all to protect her. The other archers stood in crevasses above them, shooting down arrows that slowed the attempts to encircle them.

  Dynan took Fadril’s knife and slashed it across his palm. He clamped a hand around his wrist and squeezed, hoping to speed the loss of blood or energy or whatever the glowing stuff was that oozed from the wound. It took only a second for every creature to become aware of it even before he held up his hand and let it drip out.

  Dynan started moving, leaving a trail of it behind. The dogs, lizards, malformed bird creatures, and everything else on the shelf fell to scrabbling on the ground.

  All the Six turned on Dynan just as he knew they would. The Fourth charged at him, his face twisted in rabid, eager desire. Dynan started shaking, and fought down a massive need to run.

  “Just another second,” Alurn whispered in his mind, which didn’t help much against the surge of terror rising to consume coherent thought.

  The Fourth was almost there, followed closely by the First and visions of being ripped limb from limb shook through Dynan, an implanted sight that sucked the air out of his lungs. The pain of it felt real enough and he thought if he had to endure it much longer he'd start screaming. Just before sight failed him, Dynan looked beyond the coming nightmare and saw Fadril nearly to her husband.

  “All right,” Alurn said, taking his hand and mentally transporting Dynan to him an instant before the Six would have reached him. Alurn laughed when they couldn’t stop their momentum. Dynan still felt like he was being torn apart but then Alurn took it away. “I’ve got you. I’m sorry. Sometimes, they aren’t too smart.”

  “They’re going to come back.”

  “Yes,” Alurn said and pushed Dynan a step back.

  At the same time, Fadril arrived, but instead of greeting her husband again, she turned her back and kept shooting at everything that slithered or crawled. Polen, Grint and Faulkin were with her.

  The Six turned. Alurn leaned over to Dynan. “Don’t get in front of me,” he said and took another step away.

  The man standing next to him suddenly stopped being a man. While he curled inward, the body of a dragon expanded to fill half the shelf. It was large, blue and loud.

  Dynan stumbled back and fell. Every time the dragon moved the stones under his feet shuddered. Polen ducked under a massive wing and grabbed Dynan by the collar, once again dragging him out of harm’s way.

  Fadril moved to the front of the dragon’s wing where she grabbed hold and climbed her way up the broad shoulders. Once there, she turned and started shooting.

  Polen slung Dynan out of the way just as the dragon released a solid stream of liquid fire hitting the Six full on as they advanced. Three disappeared under the onslaught, though Dynan wasn’t sure if that meant they were destroyed, hurt, or just ran away.

  “They can’t be killed,” Polen said in his ear, in response to the cheer that escaped him. “They’ll come back as wraiths, or worse, they’ll join and come as one. Alurn won’t be able to stand against them joined.”

  Dynan started concentrating, hoping to find that way out before it was too late. He wasn’t sure how it would work since he didn’t have a name, on top of the uncertainty of whether or not the man who sent him here could be trusted. That man was now the only way to freedom.

  Polen and the others were fighting off an endless supply of beasts and monsters, coming at them where they stood behind Alurn in dragon form. The creatures couldn’t be killed either. They dissolved into the black rock by the altar when they were wounded and another appeared in its place. As Polen predicted, the Six became wraiths, three of them joined as he feared.

  They attacked Alurn from all sides, ripping into him with their claws or striking him with light bolts. Grint and Faulkin tried to help him, braving the terror of them. The archers who’d come through the underground passage with them rained arrows into the shelf, but before too long, they didn’t have any left. Dynan wondered how the army had fared and hoped they’d gotten away.

  Dynan tried to concentrate but nothing happened and thought nothing would unless he knew who he was trying to reach. And then it occurred to him.

  “Alurn, who sent me here?” he asked, hoping he could talk to a dragon and the distraction wouldn’t hurt him. “A man sent me here to find you. Who was it?”

  “Gradyn Vall sent you here.”

  That was news to Dynan, but it matched up with what Polen said about the priests being responsible for it all. “He was a lot younger than him. Black hair. Gray eyes.”

  “Maralt Adaeryn,” Alurn said, and dodged what would have been a lethal blast of energy from one of the wraiths. He instantly sent back one of his own that didn’t miss. The wraith vanished. Dynan guessed it would join with the other two and Alurn would keep blasting them until they were down to one. Dynan didn’t want to still be here when that happened.

  “Thanks,” he said and concentrated again. “Maralt!”

  The man who’d stabbed him in the heart looked back at him with gray eyes that were immediately filled with relief. As if he were stepping through a door, Maralt reached out his hand to Dynan, but turned to speak to someone beside him.

  “Carryn, take this and only use it if you have to. I’m going.”

  “Maralt, wait—”

  “I’ll be all right. There isn’t any time to wait,” he said and the next instant Maralt was standing beside Dynan on the shelf. His eyes widened when he saw the wraith and the dragon with Fadril still fighting from its shoulder.

  Dynan was about to explain who was who, but the ground under their feet heaved sideways and then kept shaking. As he was thrown down, Dynan saw Fadril fall and the dragon stumbled. Alurn re-emerged, dwindling back into himself and clutching one arm to his side. Fadril rushed to him, falling to her knees beside him.

  The wraith changed too, becoming Adiem the next instant, but he didn’t attack again. He turned instead, staring at Maralt.

  Maralt was staring too, from Alurn to Adiem. It seemed every creature froze for a moment, waiting in anticipation. The shaking stopped. The silence of a tomb filled the shelf. Adiem ignored Alurn and walked over to Maralt, who backed away more than a few steps. He was facing the First, the sum of them all.

  “What is this?” Maralt whispered hoarsely when he bumped into Dynan. They were backed up against one of the pillars and couldn’t go any further.

  “He knows you’re a telepath.”

  “Who is he?”

  Dynan didn’t want to tell him, suddenly afraid that something very bad was about to happen that would change all the rules again. Adiem approached intent on Maralt, not maniacal or even very different from Alurn in the way he looked.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” Adiem said, smiling as he came to a stop in front of them. “For a very long time in fact. Why you’re here with them we’ll sort out later, but—”

  “I’m here to get them away from you,” Maralt said, keeping Dynan behind him.

  Adiem’s smile faltered for
a second, but came back. “You’ve been misled. Yes, that’s it. You’ve been with the old man, haven’t you? He’s lied to you all your life about who you are, who you’ll be, hasn’t he? I know he has. It’s the way he gets people to do what he wants. It’s the way they’ve all been, down through the long passage of time, lying about all of it. Come with me and I’ll show you the truth.”

  “I’m taking them back with me. You can’t stop me,” Maralt said. “Why should I come with you?”

  “I’m your father.” Adiem smiled again, while Maralt gaped at him, unaware at first that it was possible. The dawning realization that Adiem was telling the truth came then. Not that Adiem was Maralt’s physical father, anymore than Alurn was Dynan’s, but they were descended from them both.

  “It’s funny,” Dynan said and stepped in front of Maralt, terrified, but knowing he had to do something to get away from Adiem. “Even your own ancestors have never heard of you.”

  Dynan pushed Maralt to the side, almost knocking him down to get them both out of the way. The Fourth came out, lunging at them.

  Alurn recovered from whatever had injured him and threw himself at his brother. Polen dashed by, stabbing and running. Grint and Faulkin followed, and Fadril kept shooting arrows, one after the other just to slow Adiem down even a little.

  The ground started shaking again and Dynan feared it, the pounding noise sounding very much like footsteps of something large and terrible coming. With all of them there at the Gate, the Six, Dynan, Dain, Maralt and Alurn, the demon had the strength to take them, and maybe even reach the Gods themselves. It was coming to do so.

  “We have to get out of here right now,” Dynan said.

  He shoved Maralt again to get him away from Adiem who was still intent on reaching him. Alurn stepped in front of them both, a bolt of light exploding from his hand.

  “We’re taking them all with us. All of them.”

  Maralt nodded, still shaken from what he’d been told but he looked to Alurn. “He has Dain?”