The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1)

by Michael Mood

  She picked it up gingerly and noticed the details on it for the first time. It had a twisting handle and a curving blade which was scribed with symbols she didn't understand. It was about as long as her forearm, and lighter than it looked.

  “Mistress, please be careful,” Tessa pleaded.

  “I'm trying, Tessa, but I don't know what to do with this thing.”

  “You're not going to keep it, are you?”

  “It needs a holder like we see on other humans,” Crasher suggested.

  “A sheath,” Wren said. “But where am I supposed to find such a thing?”

  “It might be made,” said the raccoon who had found the knife. “There are animals that, with your guidance, may be able to construct a holder for it. I will let you know if I see any in our travels.”

  “I'll have to hold it until then, I guess,” Wren said, looking over at Crasher to see if he thought that was a good idea. Wren started laughing then because Crasher suddenly had all four raccoons riding on his back. They must have scurried up for some free travel.

  “Normally I would not tolerate such a thing, but they are friends of yours, mistress,” the bear explained.

  “Should we maintain our course then?” Tessa asked. “Or should we search for your father, Wren? Or should we rest?”

  “The way he was riding, I doubt we could catch him,” Wren said. “Jon once told me that my father used to be an expert rider. We should get out of here, and quickly. Crasher, may I ride you?”

  “If you can move these abominations from my back or ride with them,” answered the bear.

  Wren grabbed a handful of Crasher's fur and swung herself up, being careful to hold the knife in as safe a position as possible. The raccoons adjusted to her presence, riding more on Crasher's sides. Wren knew they would be quite a sight this way.

  “Run towards the Tree,” she told Crasher. “We won't rest today. I want to be as far away from here as possible before we do.” Her adrenaline had overtaken any other feeling.

  “Yes, mistress.”

  The bird that she had followed to her father flitted onto her shoulder then.

  “Treetreetreetreetree,” it whistled. “Daydaydaydayday. Dododododo.”

  “See what I mean about birds?” Tessa whispered.

  -4-

  They passed the outskirts of a few small towns that Wren didn't recognize. She was much too far away from her home to be able to know her whereabouts. She had never been this far away from where she had been born, but somehow she had expected there to be more variation in the landscape.

  Her arm ached from holding the knife while riding on Crasher's back, but her determination to get as far away as she could that day kept her going.

  “Stop,” said one of the raccoons.

  “Shall I, mistress?” the bear asked.

  “Is it safe, raccoon?”

  “Yes,” the bandit answered. “I smell the creatures that will help you build a container for that weapon.”

  “Go ahead and stop, Crasher,” Wren said. She dismounted and set the knife on the ground. It had grown very, very heavy.

  “I smell them, too,” Tessa said. “Raccoons, you are smarter than I give you credit for.”

  The raccoon seemed to bow his head.

  “What do you smell?” Wren tried to feel what they were talking about. She reached out with her power again, unsure if she could be successful again or not. She felt life nearby, but it didn't feel like one large life, it felt like thousands of separate tiny ones.

  “Termites,” the raccoon said. “They won't be able to do it by themselves, but with your power you might be able to help them.”

  “I don't know how to use my powers very well, raccoon."

  “Try."

  Wren reached out, trying to feel the termites as she had the horse.

  “They will need to know the design,” the raccoon said.

  Wren felt a thread of connection with the bugs. There was something sick about it - possibly because she was trying to touch a nest of insects which she didn't really like - but it was there. Learn my knife, she instructed them, trying to keep it simple.

  The swarm of termites came out of a dead stump, forming a river that surged towards where the knife lay on the ground. They began swarming the blade until the whole weapon was covered in their pale bodies. Wren could feel their minds working, could almost feel the signals they were sending to each other.

  "It is done." The thought came from no single termite, but from all of them at once.

  Wren's skin crawled, but she persisted. The ability to use her power was so invigorating that nothing else mattered. She tried to keep her commands simple. Carve me a holder for it, she sent.

  The termites went to a nearby stump and began to swarm it as they had the blade. Wren could hear the sound of their chewing. They worked with a singularity of mind that frightened her. Slowly, slowly, there was a pattern forming in the wood and slowly, slowly the shape they were working on fell away onto the ground.

  It was a perfectly smooth wooden sheath that looked as if it would fit the blade perfectly.

  "It is done."

  Wren moved over to retrieve the object as the termites scurried away, her Calling fading.

  “My God,” breathed Wren. “What am I capable of?”

  “I'm not sure any of us know the full answer to that, mistress,” Tessa said.

  Chapter 17 – Life With Allura

  -1-

  Otom's journey had stalled. Pakken had too strong of a pull on his emotions, and he couldn't seem to move from its proximity. He wondered if Silence was still alive and had to resist the urge to try and find him multiple times.

  Otom pulled The Book from his back and flipped through it, trying to find inspiration within. There were many pieces of loose paper hiding between the pages, many of which had been written by Otom himself. He had tucked these notes into his copy of The Book over the years. They contained everything from poetry to confessions, translations to philosophy.

  He turned to the section about the marked men, a section that had always been much debated within his Monastery. It was likely the part of The Book that Umden had referred to before he had died. The original text had been poorly translated and mangled through the ages.

  But he wanted reassurance. He wanted answers.

  Otom read The Book by moonlight:

  Being marked is a sign from God. Never Gustus. Never. There is a place in our world where such power must gather. In this age we call it Singra, but there is no telling what it may be named throughout the ages. Reach it.

  Hastily. Draw no attention.

  If you are chosen in this manner, do not fear, but put your faith in God. Never Gustus. Never.

  That was all that it said. Very little information. There had always been trouble with this section of the Book, as if the words had been written by a much different hand than the rest of it.

  Otom looked down at his glowing symbol and wondered if all of his suffering had been meant to lead him to where he was. Even though he was only a few weeks removed from the Monastery and the companionship of his brothers he found his faith wavering. Was it simply routine that had kept him penitent? Otom had always been thoughtful, and though he tried to mull over everything, his mind kept drifting back to his home town of Pakken.

  Back to Allura.

  -2-

  13 Years Ago

  Otom told the people who had known them that his parents had been murdered by a wanderer who Otom then killed in revenge. It wasn't entirely accurate, but it was a story Otom was comfortable with.

  It had been three months since Otom and Allura had buried his ma, da, and Ris. Otom was actually a little shocked at himself that he had nearly recovered from the experience already. The need to keep on living, and to take care of Allura, had strongly overcome his grief within a few weeks.

  He felt guilty about that, but he couldn't control his emotions. He had found love. It may have been in a tragic way, but there it was. Allura an
d Otom had started their new life together, thrust into it – as Allura would constantly claim – by God's will.

  They lived in Otom's parent's house and Otom had become a man in the blink of an eye. He knew how to provide for Allura, and how to survive in the unforgiving north; both skills he had gotten from his da. He had also found out many things about Allura as they talked during her recovery. She'd had a falling out with her family, so they wouldn't miss her. She was from a place called Pooling Lake that was far to the southwest, near Marshanti. She preferred vegetables to meat. She could knit surprisingly well and had a natural knack for ice fishing.

  Otom pitched another log into the fire and it flared, filling the house with a weak warmth. Allura stood at the oven, still having to wear warm clothing this deep into the winter, but Otom knew that her lean figure lurked just beneath them. He was constantly filled with desire for her, and found that most of the time he couldn't keep his hands off of her.

  “This shit isn't turning out right,” she said, blowing some of her blond hair away from her face as she worked.

  “My ma used to say that if you could hold your hand inside the oven for five heartbeats, it was the right temperature for bread,” Otom offered.

  “Yeah, you told me that before."

  Allura was a fantastic friend, lover, and housekeeper, but she wasn't a gifted cook.

  “There's always jerky,” Otom suggested.

  “You're always jerky,” she said. “I can do this, Otom. I just need more time to learn.”

  Otom closed his eyes and went back to relaxing, letting Allura finish undisturbed. His muscles were incredibly sore from the local tournament he had fought in yesterday. He had won the whole thing, continuing the undefeated streak he had been on since his parents' deaths. Perhaps it was time for him to take another stab at a larger regional tournament, like the one in Kilgaan. But the thought of that still made him feel weak.

  Otom was so relaxed right now that he felt himself drifting in and out of dreams:

  The air hung thick around Otom like a shroud. He was near a stream in a misty forest, watching salmon try to swim upriver to spawn.

  “They do that because they know nothing else,” explained a voice.

  “But it's so senseless,” Otom said. “Most of them die in the process. Couldn't they find another way?”

  The mysterious voice said: “Creatures will often do very stupid things for love.” The last word echoed.

  Otom's nose began to tingle and he rubbed at it with the back of his hand. His eyes began to water and his skin felt hot and flushed as he watched thousands of salmon swim against the current. They swam faster and faster, jumping higher and higher and higher. Events sped up till Otom felt sick at the pace. Sun. Moon. Sun. Moon. Sun-

  Suddenly he was awakened by the smell of smoke. He opened his eyes to see black billowing clouds hanging thick in the air and he panicked, hurling himself out of his chair.

  “Allura?” he coughed. He crouched low and walked towards where Allura had been cooking.

  She was lying on the floor. Otom put his hands under her arms and dragged her outside. He grabbed a huge armful of snow and carried it inside to throw on the flames that had grown near the stove, but it wasn't enough. It hissed and melted as it made contact with the fire, but it seemed to make not a dent in the blaze.

  Otom worked tirelessly trying to smother the flames with blankets and snow while alternately checking on Allura, but eventually he lost the battle, his house collapsing in on itself with a mighty thud and a rush of flame. He was barely able to throw Allura and himself out of the way of the avalanche of wood and fire.

  Allura's nose was bleeding, but Otom wasn't sure when that had happened. He stood up slowly from the ground and gazed at what remained of his parents' house. It would take him quite some time to rebuild it. His heart felt like wood. He wondered - for the first time, but not the last – if he were cursed somehow. He gathered his beauty up in his arms and headed to the shed where she would be warm enough.

  “Fire Kin,” she muttered as he carried her.

  “What did you say?” Otom asked.

  “Fire Kin.” The words barely escaped her pale, dry lips.

  He opened the door to the shed and carried her inside. There was just enough room to lay her down on the floor and close the door. Light shone in only from the small window as Otom tried to decide what to do next.

  Allura decided for him when she stood up suddenly, nearly hitting her head on the ceiling of the small space.

  “Make love to me,” she said, her face suddenly wild.

  “Excuse me?” asked Otom.

  “Fuck me,” she repeated slowly, as if she were talking to a slow child.

  She grabbed her coat and tore it open, exposing the cotton dress she always wore under it. She shrugged her arms out of the coat as Otom stood still, not moving a muscle, fearing he was suffering some delusion.

  “Allura,” he said, “you have to keep your coat on. It's well below freezing out here.”

  She shrugged herself free from the shoulders of her dress and quickly tore it down, leaving her torso susceptible to the open air. Her skin had goosebumps all the way from her shoulders to her waist, her skin an odd blue color.

  “Something's wrong with you,” Otom said.

  “Yes,” she said. “The fact that you are not on top of me.”

  Otom noticed her eyes. They looked similar to how Ris's had looked as he'd paced under the treehouse; bloodshot and oddly aimed. Allura grabbed Otom's hand and tried to pull it to her chest, but Otom resisted, not knowing exactly what was going on.

  “What's the matter?” she challenged. “Tits aren't big enough for ya, Fire Kin?”

  “No,” he said, trying to push her dress up. “You've gone insane.”

  Allura put her hands to her head then, abandoning her attack on Otom's hand. He took the opportunity to try and get her coat wrapped around her again and he was able to close it over her. She wept as he lowered her gently to the ground.

  “Oh, Otom,” she moaned. “My head hurts . . . so much.” A fresh bit of blood slowly trickled down from her nose.

  “Something's wrong,” he said. “Lura, we have to get you to . . . someone that knows what's happening.” She was sick, and Otom had very limited options. The only person in close proximity that he would trust with something like this was Silence. “This may seem like a dumb question,” he said, “but can you walk at all? Otherwise I'm gonna have to rig a sled to take you to Silence.”

  “Oh, please don't let anyone else see me like this,” Allura begged as she had before.

  “Someone's going to need to see you. Do you need a sled?”

  She didn't answer, but Otom began immediately to ready what they would need. The house could be rebuilt later, if at all. He realized suddenly that in some ways it was freeing that it had burned. He didn't recognize the feeling of relief at the time because he had been in such a panic, but it was actually rather cleansing.

  “Maybe I'll rebuild you,” he muttered to the house as he exited the shed. “Or maybe I won't.”

  Between the burned and fallen walls Otom could see to the backyard where the gravestones of his ma, da, and Ris sat with a clean layer of white snow on their dimpled gray tops.

  -3-

  Silence wasn't silent all the time. Only during training was he totally devoid of words. He often said 'words obscure meaning' and he smiled a little when he said it.

  “This the girl, eh?” Silence said as he felt Allura's face with gentle hands. His eyes were pale and never looking in the right direction. Their blind stare had taken Otom some time to get used to at first.

  Allura lay on the only bed in Silence's house and she was quiet for now, breathing shallowly. She'd had another strange fit while she had been on the sled, and Otom had had to just ignore her and keep pulling.

  “This is her,” Otom said.

  “She burnin' up." Silence laid his old, wrinkled hand on her forehead. He loomed over her, his fac
e concerned, his eyes staring at the wall.

  “She's been having fits, her nose is bleeding, and I think she passed out earlier today. I didn't know where else to take her. Don't want to travel too far with her. When she passed out she must have knocked something over or . . . I don't know what, but most of the place burned down.”

  Silence slowly shook his bald head. “Oh, Otom. A shame. Dangerous, this one."

  “Something like that. But I love her. We have to help her. I know a lot of medicine, but I don't know what to do about this.”

  Allura coughed and her eyes fluttered.

  “She very sick,” Silence said. “I never quite felt nothin' like this. Concussed perhaps, but the fever burns too hotly.” He tucked the blanket tighter around Allura and cracked his knuckles, something he often did when he was frustrated. “She can stay here. But she must be careful and you must stay, too. I feel something here. There is only one thing I know that might help her but it will be hard to get. You are young. Maybe up to the task.”

  “I'll do anything,” Otom said. “Anything.”

  -4-

  Present Day

  The next words that Silence would speak to Otom would start him on the journey that would end his old life.

  “She need a branch,” Silence had said. “A branch from the Dryad Tree.”

  Otom remembered the rest of that day so vividly. He'd tried to decide what to do. Silence had never steered him wrong before and Allura had looked so very sick. That giant old tree – the Dryad Tree – really might have been her only hope.

  The winter sun had streamed through the window as Otom had sat next to Allura and looked down at her. Her hair had lost its vibrancy and lay limp and lifeless around her pale head. She had looked as if she might already be dead, and he remembered that he had checked her breathing obsessively.