Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen

by Daniel Huber

  "Clea are you okay?" She nodded, still coughing, but now looking down. She reached out and took another deep swig of her drink, calming her throat enough that she could breathe. She inhaled deeply for a moment, then wiped her eyes. Quade couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Could it be Clea? How did she know? What did she know? He went over in his mind what it was that he'd been told. It will often be those most close to you. He had invited Clea over that morning on a whim, to cover all the possible options, but he'd never really believed she could be a part of this.

  "Clea, what do you know of a place called P'cadia?" Quade asked.

  "P'cadia?" Clea covered her mouth with a napkin, still looking down. "I don't even know where P'cadia is."

  "That didn't answer my question, Clea." Quade felt a wave of desperation swell within him, and he leaned over to her and grasped her wrist. "What do you know of this place?" Clea looked straight up into his eyes as she spoke, her jaw tight and her teeth clenched.

  "How can I possibly know something about a place when I don't even know where it is?" She glanced angrily down to his hand, her expression full of threat that had serious intent behind it. Quade let her wrist go and sat back down. Trina watched what was happening, puzzled and taken aback from Clea's hostile reaction. She had never seen Clea offer that look to someone she considered a friend.

  "Okay you two," Trina said, crossing her arms over her chest, "what's going on? Dreams, information, a strange, unidentifiable place? Do I get to be a part of this little game? " Neither of them said anything for a minute, then Trina continued, almost in jest, to see if this was some strange joke that she didn't get. "Clea, are you having dreams of P'cadia too?'

  "No," she said offhandedly. "No dreams here. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then she looked across the table with an expectant expression. "Quade?"

  "I don’t know," he said, sighing and swirling his tea in its mug. "Sometimes I have really weird dreams. About strange places. I can't quite grasp what they mean."

  "Did it ever occur to you that a dream might be just that? A simple dream?" Clea said indignantly, pushing her food around on her plate no longer having an appetite to eat it.

  "No," said Quade. "Not my dreams." He looked at her with purpose.

  "Well, are they bad dreams, Quade?" Trina leaned into him, genuinely interested. "Nightmares? Perhaps they're premonitions?" A look of amused consideration crossed her face. "You may find that you can grasp some form of magic after all, if that's what they are."

  Quade looked away from Clea, who had such a barrier wrapped around herself that he knew he'd get nowhere with her now, and back to Trina, who was staring at him, awaiting an answer. It isn't Trina, he thought. It's Clea! He reached his hand across the table and held hers within it, squeezing with feigned assurance.

  "Oh, I don't know about that, love," he said quietly. "I think they're just really weird dreams."

  Clea stood up, taking a last deep drink of her tea. "Well Quade I'm sorry that I can't stay around to help you figure them out," She didn't look at him as she spoke. "But I have to meet Ryder in just about thirty minutes." She put her hand on Trina's shoulder lightly. "I'll talk to you about the Twilight Bloom when I get back, Trina. Thanks for breakfast." Her eyes shifted briefly to Quade, full of suspicion, full of confused anger, then looked away.

  "Goodbye, Quade." As she walked away, Clea didn't look back. Trina thought for a minute as she watched the back of her friend then she turned to Quade to see that he was watching her as well.

  "What was that all about?" she asked. "Is something going on that I should know about, Quade? Or can I safely assume that the two of you are involved in some kind of birthday hijinks for the Daughter Keystone?" She paused when she got no response and then changed her tone. "If it's the dreams that are really bothering you maybe you could mention it to my father. He has access to any kind of information you would ever need. Maybe he could help figure it out."

  Quade had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her everything. Not yet, not until he was sure. But he was already sure. Now he knew that something was truly happening to him, that all the things he'd been dealing with for months might actually have purpose.

  "No, not now," he said. He looked up, doing his best to push it aside. "You're father's too busy anyway…he told me to tell you good morning in fact, because he probably won't have a chance to see you before he leaves." Trina glanced up to the castle, but she looked back to Quade when he continued. "I'll figure it out, I'm sure it's nothing so big that I can't handle it myself. I should get home anyway. Haven't been there for a week now. I do have a lot of follow up work to do."

  "Okay love. Whatever you need to do."

  The silence between them was comfortable, and Quade was glad that the moment had passed. Then Trina spoke again.

  Actually," she said, her voice a bit mysterious. "I might have something that will take your mind off of what it is that troubles you. For tonight anyway."

  "And that would be?"

  Trina smiled a coy smile. "Meet me in the garden below my window tonight when the moon is in eclipse. I have a little…delivery I need to make."

  Aushlin studied the cartridges one after the other, analyzing the charted courses of the newly found leylines that Quade had brought from the Venrey, and comparing them to ones that had been previously established. His eyebrow lifted in pleased realization as he found another connecting path to the remote system of Tybesh, a planet who had been having trouble for years getting ample supplies to their humble world.

  "Look here, Aazrio," he said, gesturing between his two viewers. "Another path leading directly from Tybesh to Calacomest. This will open up new supply lines, make transport of goods much easier, and so much better for the people of Tybesh. I shall have to send word right away. Never again need they go cold and hungry, even for a day."

  Aazrio glanced at the data the Keystone had cross-referenced, then stood back solemnly. "They only ever went cold and hungry because of their choice of home. There is no reason why they should ever have left the central systems, where magic is strong and creature comforts are abundant."

  The Keystone laughed at the guard's dry sensibility. "It is a human trait to desire exploration and experience, Aazrio," he said, making note of his findings. "One cannot judge another for an impulse which is natural and inborn. It is a vast and beautiful galaxy we live in, and to appreciate its boundless diversity is a whim I'm delighted to support."

  "What price though, this self-inflicted suffering?" Aazrio walked away from the desk, looked out the window to the garden outside. "To jump blindly into the unknown, and then suffer the consequences after it's too late to turn back?"

  "What price? Knowledge. Wanderlust. Hunger for adventure." Aushlin dropped another set of cartridges into his viewers. "All that makes us so dimensional a breed, my friend. And aside from that, why would the gods have so generously given us the leylines if they did not wish for us to explore their grand creation, this galaxy?"

  "The exploration comes with a price attached."

  "And it is a price that many are eager to pay." Aushlin outlined another connecting leyline on his display, as he continued speaking. "Fortunately we have the Venrey who eliminate a good portion of the risk that exploration carries. Leylines so intertwined and complex as these that Thanach brought us this time, are almost suicidal to investigate with no reference as to where they'll drop you once they end."

  Aazrio gave a short, humorless laugh. "The Venrey become inefficient in their travels though. Their recklessness and disregard of existence lends them to make sloppy choices in their quest for acquisition."

  "All true, Aazrio," agreed the Keystone. "The Venrey possess all those unattractive traits and probably many more." He paused for a moment to think. "But the Venrey have also helped us to realize some of our dearest desires."

  Aazrio had no retort for the Keystone at that point, and he just stood staring out across the grounds of the castle. Aushlin glanced at the guard and smiled to himse
lf. He didn't expect Aazrio to understand the spirit of what he was attempting to convey, but he would never stop trying to explain it. As he went back to his analyzing his data, he changed the subject casually.

  "I don't suppose my daughter joined you in your morning combat routine yesterday," he said. He didn't need to look up to see Aazrio's disregard of the question.

  "On Seventh Day? You might answer that question for yourself, Keystone."

  Aushlin looked up from his work, and stared at the wall, where the rough painting of a young girl of about four years old was displayed, mounted and suspended with no frame, nothing to distract one from the spirit of the piece. The little girl was leaning her hands against the high glass of her bedroom windows, her floor length red ceremonial dress covering her feet. Only the side of her face was visible from the hindsight perspective, and the white, shoulder length hair stood stark against her collar. He laughed to himself and went back to his work, remembering how proud Trina was when she presented her father with her first self-portrait at such a young age.

  "I of course, kept watch over her," the guard continued.

  "As only you can, Aazrio. As you did over me and my father, and my father's father before him." Aushlin tapped the top of his desk, thinking for a moment before he spoke again.

  "I'm concerned, about what Quade said referring the nexus point being destroyed. How could it happen, a nexus point, destroyed?" The Keystone moved his fingers along his holographic display, changed it to show that area of space. "Even for it to have collapsed by natural means would be unheard of, I should think. The Nivas system is remote but not isolated. This must be made known to Macvaladen Livius. Much as he hates to deal with the Venrey I'm afraid he'll have no choice this time. I should be able to contact him through Herezon or Wikyre; I believe he has new mining interests out there."

  "His most recent interests lie in the system of Wikyre," replied the guard. "It is most perplexing, Keystone. There is nothing natural I can think of that could destroy a nexus point. " Aazrio's voice carried his usual tone of suspicion when anything was in the least alarming, and often when it was not. "The situation bears looking into, but do you feel that Macvaladen Livius is up for the task?"

  "Nivas falls closest to his section of the galaxy, Aazrio. It is his duty to govern over it the best way fit for our people. His resources are vast… he may not choose to employ the Venrey but if he does not he still must be able to discern what caused this strange occurrence by his own guises. His fleets are large. I shall send word to him immediately." The Keystone began to type at an accelerated rate upon his keyboard.

  "Where will this journey be taking you, Keystone?" The guard walked away from the window and back to Aushlin's desk where he studied his screens carefully. "Although I cannot join you it's important that I know where you plan to travel."

  "This trip takes me to the planet of Maylyn," Aushlin replied, and he glanced to the clock on the wall, as he sent his transmission. "It takes me there in just ten minutes in fact. How time slips away from me, Aazrio! I must be leaving at once, and I will deal more with this matter of the nexus point when I return." The Keystone closed up his projects, then stood to leave.

  "I trust the situation there is a peaceful one, then?" asked Aazrio as he watched the Keystone go toward the door.

  "Oh yes, Aazrio. The peace covenant has been in place for some weeks now. I am just traveling there to officiate over the signing of the pact." The guard shifted uneasily where he stood and Aushlin smiled as he walked away, and called from the corridor as he headed toward the castle's hangar and his starship. "It's not even a day I'll be gone, old friend. Keep watch over my daughter, and I shall see you early next 'morrow."

  CHAPTER 9

  Quade climbed the curving staircase slowly, his mind heavy with concern, with confusion. Seek first the one who will offer you vital information about P'cadia. The words nagged at him, countless other tidbits he'd been told over the past months came to the surface of his thoughts. Study the legend, know your place among it. He reached mindlessly to take his jacket from the table it was laying across, felt inside the pockets for his identification and his hangar pass. Seek your Chosen. This is your destiny… His destiny? To fulfill the events that only existed in legend? It still seemed impossible that any of this could be real, that anything he'd witnessed could be the beginning of a thing so part of lore and myth. Even though he'd seen unexplainable things, felt undeniably ominous feelings, and been having catastrophic dreams of destruction so abominable he could barely stand the images in his mind, it still seemed unlikely that these things so horrendous could really happen in his world. He looked around the comfortable, familiar surroundings of Trina's room. Everything felt right here, everything felt safe and welcoming, everything was-

  Something caught Quade's eye as he stood looking around. How had he never noticed this before? He walked over to Trina's vanity, where she displayed several sentimental items; the wedding rings of both her parents, the tiny circle of gold that was her first bracelet, and an amulet that hung on a silk cord necklace which was draped over the mirror. The symbol was a solid pewter circle with outstretched armed branches on either side, by which the symbol was attached to the cord. It was something he'd seen hundreds of times throughout his life, something that Trina had worn around her neck often as a teen. But now as he looked at it, the symbol took on a different meaning, and a different significance. In his many dreams, he'd repeatedly seen the image of a planet, a planet that he always feared was Bethel but couldn't quite discern from the dream state he was in. The planet burned and smoldered, almost completely destroyed in the dream, the very last wisps of its living presence on the brink of being snuffed out when strange and powerful arms would wrap themselves around the flaming orb, and from their healing, saving embrace, the planet would spring to life again. The fire vanquished, the smoldering turned into new mist and rejuvenating rain, washing across that which was destroyed and springing it into new life. This was in the better dreams, the more hopeful dreams, the ones that didn’t end in mass destruction and the end of all things alive in the world.

  Quade stood at the vanity, his eyes fixed on the circle, and by a will that wasn't even his own, he reached to the necklace and grabbed it in his fist, stashing it into a pocket of his jacket, then he turned to leave the room.

  He needed answers. Why did Clea react the way she did? How would anyone know something about what Quade himself had been going through the past few months, the thing that would be impossible to know of unless they too, were a part of it?

  Quade's steps became hasty as he ran down the spiraling stairs, thinking of nothing now but getting to the hangar in time.

  Clea leaned against the silver turret, listening as she heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer. They slowed as they reached their arranged spot, and Ryder walked around the large support, giving her a look of surprised recognition.

  "Clea, I hardly recognized you," he said, examining her with scrutinizing eyes. "You're so much more…dressed. I'd almost believe that you were really a smuggler looking like you do today."

  Her expression didn't change as she listened to him talk and visually inspect her. She felt as comfortable in her long sleeved drab coveralls as she did in her civilian clothes, could move with the same ease in this androgynous, concealing garment as in her silky skirts and wispy tops. It was her eyes that never changed; her eyes that were always direct were always intense, whether she was bartering for a string of bells to circle about her waist, or a large sum of money in exchange for her transport services.

  "Where's the cargo, Ryder?" Her voice was flat, serious. She didn't engage in small talk until the money was in her hand.

  "One of your crew met me as I walked up with it," he said. "She said it had to be scanned before they loaded it on board. What's the problem, Clea? Don't you trust that what I say is in the crate is really what's in the crate?"

  "I've no reason to trust you, Ryder. I don't even know you. Everything ge
ts scanned before it goes on board. Still taking me for a novice, I see."

  Ryder produced a clear glass disc, a credit piece in the amount of ten thousand chid. He held it before her face and looked at her, turning serious all at once.

  "These aren't novice fees, Clea. And I expect absolute flawless performance in exchange for them." She stared past the credit piece, directly into his eyes, and said nothing. Finally, Ryder spoke again.

  "Aren't you going to take the money, Clea?" he asked. She still didn't look at it, still focused on his eyes.

  "When you hand it to me properly, and not just hang it in front of my face like some bait I have to grab for."

  For a moment, he didn't move, then he lowered his hand to her waist and Clea reached out to take the disc, without losing her lock on Ryder's eyes. With the payment now in her hand she smiled wryly and looked away. "Have a little faith, Ryder," she said, looking at the credit piece, then stowing it in her hip pocket. "I've done a lot more dangerous runs than this one."

  "I'm sure you have," he replied, leaning next to her against the turret. "You talked about Oracuu as though it were a pleasure resort." She had to fight down a big smile for that comment, and she focused on the deal so that she wouldn't give herself away.

  "What about coordinates, Ryder? That and the liaison, if any, that I'm meeting once the delivery is done?"

  "Right here, fair lady." He produced another disc, a much smaller one encased in a black paper sleeve. She plucked the disc from his hand before he could anticipate her doing it. "I assume you have a data reader on your ship?" he asked.

  "Of course I do," she replied, reaching into a deep pocket on her thigh, "I also have a portable one right here." With skilled precision, she dropped the disc into her reader, and looked at the information that came up on the miniature screen. She glanced up to Ryder, noting how his mouth pressed tightly together as though he were frustrated, and she pressed a couple of buttons on the keypad, nodding her head as though she understood what she read. Shutting the lid on the palm-sized device, she stowed it in a more accessible pocket, and tripped the release button as she did, catching the disc as it popped into her hand, and noticing that Ryder had relaxed again. She swayed her body away from the turret, walking a few steps in front of her associate.