The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1)

by Michael Mood

  It was odd to think of such a vast resource seeing such little use, but this place wasn't spoken of outside of the Temple. The main problem - even for those that knew how to access the Bibliofero - was that there was no real method of organization. A collection of this size required upkeep that the Devotees simply didn't have the time or numbers to deal with and it had, as far as Domma knew, always been a disaster.

  There had been sisters through the ages that had cared for it, but not nearly as well as they should have. Their system seemed to have very few rules. They shelved and organized by what they felt to be relevant, putting the more usable tomes on the closest shelves at eye level, and everything else progressively farther back until they were in the Depths.

  Domma found herself there now. There were no cobwebs as one might expect in the back of giant library. Nothing lived down here.

  Her candle burned almost too dimly for her to see, but she began to extract books from the shelves very carefully. She turned the first one over, trying to find a title, but couldn't see one. She sat down on the ground and opened it. The script inside was written in a language that Domma couldn't translate, so she decided to place it back on the shelf and take another. On and on she worked, becoming increasingly frustrated that nothing she picked seemed relevant. It was impossible to find the books Metta had written down. There were thousands upon thousands of unrecognizable volumes.

  An entire bell had passed and still Domma had found nothing.

  “God,” she prayed in the darkness, “please guide my hand. Help me find what I am looking for.” She expended the tiniest bit of power to send the words with more force, and with her next choice she thought she felt her hand being pushed gently in the proper direction.

  She selected a blue tome with gold edging on it and ran her hand over the cover. She opened the book, her candle a mere stub at this point. The text inside was in a large, hastily scrawled, uneven script and the lines were not quite straight. The ink was faded and Domma squinted as she read. The language was of the ancient south, but she could translate most of it and so she began to read, becoming more and more enthralled as she did:

  My name is unimportant and my journey has been long, and made longer still by my wounds. But the creature that attacked me had certainly been neither human nor animal. I was wandering near the misty barrier that separates our world from . . . from what, I am not sure. I have never heard of anyone entering it and coming back alive. Perhaps God wants to keep us from knowing, or perhaps the world simply ends there, fading into mist for eternity.

  It makes little difference either way, for leaping from the misty area came a creature of hideous design. The claws of a crab, elongated and dripping with toxin, tipped its arms. The rest of it resembled no creature that I have encountered and I therefore find it difficult to describe here, especially since writing is so painful.

  It screeched at me in a foreign tongue - if one could even call it a tongue - and quite before I knew it I was under assault. I tried to (a word that Domma did not recognize) it, but it was to no effect as it ran towards me. It swung at my leg as I dodged away, calling for peace. Of course you must know that it did not listen to my plea. I begged it to return to the mist as I backed away, asking forgiveness for disturbing it as I must have done. To no avail.

  I drew my (probably some kind of a sword) as it lunged at me again and the metal made a harsh sound against its (skin?) but accomplished nothing. It was only when I fell backwards, rolling down a hill, that I ceased to be under attack. I may have fractured my skull and hand in the fall, but I got up nonetheless, stumbling blindly through the daylight for some escape.

  I ran until I thought I would burst. It was ninety (some measure of distance) to the nearest town, and when I got there they assumed me drunk. Leave it to the citizens of Youskirk to think the worst of a man. I was ridiculed for what I told them I had seen; after all, the people of that town had lived there their whole lives and I was a stranger to them. I must have looked awful.

  I began my journey north to inform people who might listen to me. I had seen something frightening in the mist, and I was sure it was coming for us all. I got to the northernmost town in the Southern Kingdom - that of Fisher, where the Ein river forks - and finally I was taken seriously. For a time.

  When a man is different from others he can only conceal it for so long. I stayed at Fisher for weeks, gathering supporters who would rally with me, but one of the men who joined to my cause knew me, though I did not know him. He must have hunted me, is my only guess. He knew my past better than most and slowly the rumors about me began to spread.

  I'd had the power inside of me my whole life. Like the five. The ones that caused this mess. I could use my power in various ways and it seemed to grow through prayer to the God of the North. When I was on my pilgrimage to the Southern Kingdom, my power had ebbed and flowed as if it was interrupted by some other forces, but still it remained within me.

  Some called me a wizard, others a liar, but my infamy – word of my uniqueness: the first of my kind since the mist came – spread like wildfire. As I write these words I am certain that the whole world will be sorry they weren't able to heed my warnings.

  I am writing this in the vain hope that someday, someone will see this document. It has taken me three years – all of them spent in this jail of an infirmary - to get the quill and paper necessary to write down even this small portion of my plight. My caretaker is gentle. Perhaps if my writing is not seen as a warning, it would be alright if it were seen as a joke. At the very least it must be seen.

  -1570 A.C.

  Domma's candle guttered as her eyes swept over the last of the words. There was more in this tome, but she would not be able to read it this night. As the flame died she was left in utter darkness to ponder what she had just absorbed.

  There was a lot lurking in this text. She was certain it had been recopied; the condition it was in was too good for anything else. The text was supposedly over three-hundred years old. Had this been the first recorded sighting of a Foglin? Had the creatures not existed until then?

  Domma stood up quietly and felt her way along the shelves until she reached the giant stone door. She had never much been afraid of the dark, but the Bibliofero had a strange way of getting to one's sense of calm. By the time she unlocked the door, her knees were shaking.

  Taking the book with her was out of the question, as the Bibliofero's magical workings disallowed this sort of thing. She remembered it fresh, as easily as she could memorize passages from The Book, or an entire sermon.

  She made her way back up the twisting stairs towards the dim light of the Temple's main floor all the while going over what she had just read. She was certain that God had helped her find what she was looking for, and he was trying to tell her something, but meanings were often hidden in layers. She would have to puzzle this out herself.

  She went back to her room and sat down to think.

  -3-

  The thing that tugged at the back of her mind was a contradiction in the writing. The narrator had been under attack, but then he fell, tumbling down a hill and somehow that had saved him. He seemed to say that with a fractured skull and hip he was able to escape where he otherwise would not have been able to. It didn't make any sense. His injuries should have hindered him, rather than saved him.

  Movement should have been difficult on his broken hip and thought should have slowed . . .

  With his broken skull.

  Something with skulls.

  The section missing from Ormon's skull had been the place where Domma had Mended him.

  The Foglin was after the magic.

  The narrator of the story had said people were frightened of his power. Once he hurt his head, the Foglin ceased its pursuit.

  He'd damaged his head, a source of his power?

  Do Foglins feed on magic?

  Magic was as scarce a thing as Domma knew of. Out of all the Sunburst Clerics of Haroma – of which there were easily ninety – on
ly five of them were Devotees, herself and Metta included.

  And three of them had developed their powers within the last year.

  Is the rise of magic drawing the Foglins farther north?

  Something wasn't adding up here, and Domma couldn't be sure that she wasn't just confusing herself. She resigned to think more about this tomorrow and then she lay down slowly and went to sleep.

  Chapter 14 – Devotees and Servitors

  -1-

  Krothair was sitting on the ground tending to his wounds. His lip was split in two different places and he could have sworn one of his pinkies was broken. As he rested his back against the harsh bark of an old tree, he cursed silently. If he hadn't been learning he would have left weeks ago.

  But the things Ti'Shed was showing him, even if they were delivered in insulting, abusive ways, challenged his mind and body in a most satisfying way. Techniques of sword forms, two-weapon fighting, unarmed combat, rope grappling, and other things he had never even thought of before all mingled in his mind, fighting for space and understanding.

  Krothair realized the delicate balance within himself; the fight between his thirst for knowledge and his tolerance of pain and emotional torment. He had been worried about Ti'Shed for these past few weeks: worried that the sword master would hurt him and worried that he would hurt himself. Krothair didn't want to disappoint, but it seemed that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, Ti'Shed saw him only as a failure.

  “Get up,” Ti'Shed said. The sword master's eyes were bloodshot, but still intense. He wore many wounds himself, and Krothair knew that somehow the Duller was keeping Ti'Shed from feeling as much of his pain as he probably should.

  “I thought we were done for the day,” Krothair said, his heart sinking.

  Ti'Shed's face was frighteningly passive. “We were going to be. But that last combination you attempted would have let any Foglin cut both inches of your cock off with a single slice. If we don't drill it, you will die on your first day at the Vapor.”

  “And when will that be?” Krothair asked. He put his hands on his bruised knees and pushed himself to standing. “I certainly hope it's soon.”

  “Not the best idea. If you find me too harsh, the men down there will eat you alive.”

  “I can't do anymore,” the boy said. “I can't even hold onto my weapon right now.” He heard Ti'Shed's grip creak on the two mallets he was holding, fists tightening on leather grips. “If you're going to kill me, just kill me now.”

  Silence and then a bird tweeting.

  The sun was blazing in the sky and Krothair could feel the heat of it through his clothing. It made his already warm wounds even hotter. “I'm going to go into the city,” he said, not knowing what else to do.

  “Last time you did that, it didn't end well,” Ti'Shed reminded him. “We're going to drill that last combination, Wind in the Stones.”

  Krothair tucked his shirt in as best we could and slowly ambled away from the old man. Turning his back on him was a lot more difficult than he would have thought. And not just because he can kill me. I feel as bad for him as I do for myself. Krothair had never given up on anything easily, but right now he felt the gentle equilibrium inside of himself slip and knew he needed to get away.

  And so, filthy and beaten, Krothair left Ti'Shed standing in the training yard, openly disobeying him for the first time since he had arrived.

  “I don't want to push you this hard!” the old man yelled after him. “But I have no other choice!” His last words echoed down the street.

  -2-

  The avenues of Haroma were as busy as they always were, and Krothair felt ill at ease among the throngs. It was for the first time in these crowds that he realized the extent of his injuries. He had taken some his wounds with a grain of salt until people started brushing against him. But now, even the slightest of contact sent his skin to howling. Had the excitement of training really been able to mask this much pain?

  “This is hopeless,” he said to himself. He wouldn't have even minded running into Katya or Zin or any other thief, vagabond, or idiot at this point. He had a strange, violent energy building inside of him; all the frustrations of the past weeks coming to the surface and bristling to be released on someone. Anyone.

  Something was wrong with Ti'Shed. The old man had warned Krothair himself, but the boy had been too enthralled to listen and now it was too late. Emotions churned within Krothair: respect, fear, worry, loneliness . . . the love of a son. “Maybe I'm the crazy one,” he said again to no one. He was scared to be right about that, but he was also scared to be wrong. If he was insane, then at least he had identified the problem, but if he wasn't insane then, well, that would mean that this was what normal people dealt with all the time. And maybe he was just weak after all.

  “Get the hell away from my cart, ya grungy fuck,” said an especially surly merchant.

  Krothair realized he had been staring blankly at the stack of fruit the cart contained, and he didn't want any trouble so he slowly shambled on. He didn't blame the merchant. Krothair's clothes were a mess with dirt and blood because he hadn't been paying any attention to his appearance. His mind wandered as he wandered, letting his training slip to the back of his mind as his old senses tried to take over.

  I've been wandering my his entire life. Why do I suddenly feel so lost?

  He walked with his head down.

  “Sir,” said a timid female voice. “Sir?”

  Krothair looked up and into the pleasant face of a girl who might have been somewhere around his age. “Hm?” he said.

  She was wearing a blue robe that seemed too clean to be on the dusty streets of the city and her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, giving her skin – which was flawless and already smooth – an even tighter look. Her eyes were small, but contained a depth that surprised Krothair.

  “Sir,” she said. “You look lost.”

  Krothair nodded slowly. “I suppose I am,” he said.

  The girl reached into the front of her robe and drew out a pendant. It was in the shape of a shield and Krothair knew at once he had run into someone belonging to some religious order. The idea didn't terrify him, but he wasn't thrilled either.

  One of the orphanages he had been in had been run by a religious order, and their teachings, while nice and non-threatening, had never captivated Krothair. Something felt different about this girl, though. She was a compelling sight, all ordered, together, and prim.

  “These look like cuts from a sword,” she said, running her hand gently along Krothair's forearm.

  A shotella, Krothair thought, correcting her silently. A hooked sword fantastic for stabbing around shields and not at all relevant to fighting Foglins, thank you very much.

  “Swords and shields are symbols for us,” the girl continued, “but sometimes I forget what they're really capable of. If you need someone to talk to, well, that is what I am doing at the market today.” She nodded her head, indicating a small tent that had a sunburst design on the side.

  Krothair followed her as she turned her back on him. Her steps were small, but he found that in his condition he really couldn't have walked much faster. She drew back the flap of the tent and held it open for him as he shambled inside.

  The tent was somehow a pleasant temperature despite the heat outside. The smell of dirt and sweat had become so all-encompassing to him that the herbs burning in the tiny brazier inside the tent seemed to waft the fragrance of heaven directly into his nose. He sank down onto a small stool that creaked under his weight.

  “It's not the finest accommodations,” the girl said apologetically, “but we of the Sunburst make do with what God grants us.”

  “It's a nice tent,” Krothair said. He meant it.

  The girl sat opposite him, and looked up at him with concerned eyes. There was no falsehood in her gaze, but genuine empathy. “Where should we start?” she said.

  “Isn't that a question I'm supposed to ask you?”

  “It's mostly a ques
tion we both ask to God.”

  “Look,” Krothair said, holding up his hands and wincing at the pain, “I'm not exactly looking for God right now. I'm just looking for someone to talk to.”

  “There are many people in the world who don't think they're looking for God. But they are. You're looking for someone to talk to, but God could be that someone all the time. I'm just a port in a storm to you. God is the whole shore. My name is Forstina, Cleric of the Third Grace, emissary of the Sunburst Temple.”

  “I'm . . . Krothair.”

  Forstina gave him a look that seemed to mean that she expected him to go on with his description.

  So he poured his story forth to her. “I'm an orphan,” he said. “But it's kind of pathetic to think of myself that way since most people would view me as an adult now. Over the years I've done everything from petty thieving to protecting the western border of this kingdom, but I've never found my place. Then I thought I found my place. I am training with a sword master right now for a spot on the Vaporgaard, an elite group of soldiers that patrol and protect the Vapor. Do you know of such a thing?”

  “I don't know much about fighting,” Forstina said, blushing a bit. “You certainly have the muscles to be a fighter, but you don't look so much like you're in training as you are . . . being abused.”

  Krothair fell silent. “My master would say you have an uncanny intuition.”

  “Do you believe in the magics of this world?” she asked.

  “I'm not sure,” said Krothair. “There's stories, rumors. Maybe the Kingsguardians can use magic. Servitor magic. I don't know. I'm only vaguely sure what to believe between all the myths and legends.”