Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen

by Daniel Huber

  "Seclusion! What's that?" Trina started to stand indignantly. "Whatever would he require seclusion for? Is he feeling ill?"

  "Not that he mentioned, Kitrina, but he was quite specific. No interruptions. After Quade came to tell him he was ill this morning, the Keystone got quite involved in his current project."

  "Quade saw my father this morning?"

  "Yes." The guard raised a quizzical brow. "He told your father he wasn't sure that he could ride at Twilight Bloom. Did he not mention this to you?"

  "No… I mean yes, he's riding. But he didn't mention…" Trina's voice trailed off as she sat back down. She cleared her throat then, reached for another piece of bread. "What project is father working on? Something special for the Twilight Bloom?"

  "I couldn't say Kitrina. It is not my place to question."

  "Well, the horses are finished at least." Trina smiled but her mind was beginning to wander. "After my little triumph this afternoon in the Shon-Kiiel I felt quite inspired, and finished Dashus and Shadduk in no time at all."

  "I shall be eager to see what you've created this year, Trina. But I will wait until morning. No doubt Jiri has settled the stables for the evening?'

  "Actually no, I did it myself. Jiri wasn't around anywhere when I finished."

  He wasn't?"

  "No but I'm sure he just was busy with something else." Trina moved away from the topic, for she knew that sometimes Jiri would slip away at dusk to a secluded place to gaze up at the stars, that he oftentimes stowed his telescope in an unused stall in the stables for moments when the view of a certain constellation would come into view. She didn't wish a reprimand for him from the guard. "It's been a busy day for all today and tomorrow will be the same." She stood, taking her goblet from the table. "I have some things to finish up but I'll call it an early night, Aazrio. If you happen to see my father, wish him pleasant dreams."

  The guard didn't respond, nor did he watch her walk from the room as he was thinking to himself; thinking more of the same thoughts he'd been mulling over the whole of the day.

  And when the serving maiden came to clear the table he asked her for a cup of mulled wine. Aazrio thought that perhaps its warmth might provide him with the focus that he needed to bring him some answers, and if not then at least the taste would give him something to decipher that he could understand.

  CHAPTER 24

  The munitions confine of the mining freighter Toil's Quarry thrummed with the pulsing of her massive engines, surged like the sound of blood rushing through one's ears during a good stretch. Deep within the belly of the Utility Class vessel, the ship's elaborate refining assemblage was in the midst of processing that days' haul of rocks, pulverizing it down into a more transportable gravel. But none of this mattered much to Shylo Ludas. He pulled a power cell from its housing in the intricately laid grappling array and dropped it in the pocket of his coveralls, replacing it with a different power cell, one of his own special design. He tested the replacement with his portable gauge, and it read fully charged. But Shylo knew otherwise. Eleven down, one more to go. He repeated this process once more and looked at his wrist cron. Three minutes to spare. Pulling up the top half of his uniform, he shoved his arms into their sleeves, then zipped up front of the burnt orange garment. Dastardly color. Shylo walked to the exit rotator of the munitions confine, keyed in his security lock clearance and stepped into the anteroom, where he keyed in yet another password. The double doors slid open and he turned to see the red light of the lock flash back on behind him, then he made his way across the production assembly room.

  "General upkeep duties checked out and completed crewman Drystan?" Shylo responded to his assumed name, smiled broadly at his supervising officer as though he were quite self-pleased.

  "Yes sir. Everything in fine working order. I even ran a check on the launch cables, which were all in good condition. We should keep an eye on number fourteen though… I saw a few baseline cracks that will eventually spread." Actually, Shylo was quite self-pleased, but surely not for making sure that the launching stabilizers were securely positioned and the grappling gears were adequately lubricated. His upkeep duties had taken all of twenty minutes of the allotted time of one hour he'd had in which to finish them. No, Shylo was more pleased that he'd managed to replace a dozen power packs, remove all twenty-two launch casters, and successfully overridden the propulsion sequence and changed it to a bogus code.

  His supervisor reached out a hand to thump his back.

  "Good job, Drystan. You'll be out of maintenance level duties soon enough."

  "Thank you, sir. Off to the engine room now, if you'll excuse me."

  The supervisor nodded his head and turned back to whatever it was that he was doing. Shylo didn't really care. He had other things on his mind. Once in the deserted corridor that led toward the engine room, Shylo whispered a name.

  "Jame!" he said under his breath as he walked. He caught a glimpse of himself in the slender mirrored panels that ran along the corridor every few meters and shook his head. Whoever would've designed such a jumpsuit! A tiny portal came into view before his eyes, moved with him as he progressed down the hall.

  "What news, Shylo?" The voice came from within the swirling portal, but Shylo couldn't see anything but a distortion from his one-way visual communication link.

  "Macvaleden Livius will rendezvous with us in less than three hours. The ship he's traveling on is a Utility Class mega-freighter. Gigantic thing. I saw the schematic for it in the schedule log, but couldn't access any specs."

  "Got it Shylo. I'll get you the specs in our next download. What else?"

  "Not much so far. Pretty simple stuff. Very trusting crew. The only communication I’ve seen has been between Livius and the Keystone and it’s practically constant, hourly at least. But the access code is exclusive so I haven’t been able to tap in. I overheard the communications head muttering about how he was tired of dealing with matters second hand, since Livius can't be reached. Be interesting to see what's really going on over there."

  "Time for that will come soon enough Shylo."

  "I know." Shylo shrugged, smiled. "Everything's pretty much taken care of on this end. No stealth work involved here. Good thing, too." He gestured to himself and looked into the portal. "Anything new going on out there that I should know about?"

  "Not sure." The voice sounded distracted, hadn't even acknowledged Shylo's recognizable humor as he'd talked. "Just smatterings of information. Can't make anything of it just yet. But communications out here are getting worse and worse. It's spreading fast, Shylo."

  "You say the word and I'm there."

  "I'll let you know more next interface. Just finish tagging that ship for now. And stop worrying about the orange." The portal closed and Shylo laughed as entered the lift. Even with the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, Jame never overlooked a thing. Be it the slightest flutter in a communication line or the change in design of a particular ship's tail fin, all the way down to his protégé's dismay over his wardrobe, Jame was always one step ahead.

  For practice and for application, Shylo always wore black. When it came to slipping into shadows, disappearing behind a darkened door, curling up within supply containers, black and shades of grey were the colors or perhaps anti-colors, to go with. Bad enough his hair was light like the golden sands of Herezon. But that fact, he supposed, gave him a better excuse to wear the dramatic hooded cloaks that he often favored, though most magic users as young as he didn't like the air of seriousness they carried. Still, if it were Shylo's choice, he would always be in some form of black.

  But the uniforms on the Toil's Quarry were burnt orange. And so today, Shylo wore that. He sank onto the bench that ran along the circumference of the lift for the long journey to the engine rooms other side of the ship and began to think about what duties, crewman and otherwise lay ahead of him.

  CHAPTER 25

  His own gasp woke him, the sigh of his breathing pattern changing, the position of his neck bent a
gainst his arms stiff and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He moved his face a little, peeled his cheek from the glass dial of his wrist cron, knowing there would be the impression of it left behind from resting upon it for so long. He sighed again, bent his legs beneath himself. When had he moved into a chair? The last thing he remembered was being in the Avè's realm, falling asleep in that unusual bed.

  Quade opened his eyes and saw the bulkhead of his ship, the inside of his cockpit. How had he gotten here all of a sudden? And then he heard a sound. It was a hiss really, a strange, whispering timber that came from above. His brow knit together as he looked up groggily, and he fell from his chair in horror when he saw the inky vapor collected at the ceiling of his ship. The inky vapor that was the SanFear.

  It was teeming against the ceiling of the cockpit, and though it made no advance he knew somehow that it was watching him, that he knew it was there. A rageful voice wheezed to him as he stared in disbelief.

  "Insignificant thing. "

  The blackness snaked down from its aerial perch, a thousand tentacles of shadowy limbs reaching toward Quade as he scrambled away from it on the floor. Backed up against the control panel, it seeped all around him, curled like liquid smoke as he watched, lunged in vain again and again, then gathered itself in front of him and the whisper sounded again.

  "Protected by the very gods that scorned this that is I. Lowly mortal, I cannot affect you."

  Quade stared at the floor, stared at the black tip of the boot that stood right next to where he was sitting. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming, and for a moment, he was afraid to raise his eyes. He was no longer on his ship, that much he knew. Then there was a hiss again, a seething sound that made him all at once look up and recoil, his blood run cold.

  He was sitting across from the Keystone's desk, and as Aushlin stared at him and spoke, Quade heard no words issue from the Keystone's lips, heard no sound of the conversation he'd had earlier that day, but the Keystone's motions were identical to what he'd seen before. The SanFear ebbed and pulsed from Aushlin's flesh, and dark pits stared at him from the demonic countenance that possessed his movements and his very soul.

  "I have already claimed this one as mine. I know who you are. I see that you can see. I know there are others."

  Quade stood at the docking hatch of his ship, facing away from the portal, but he quickly turned around as he heard the wheezing hiss from behind him.

  "Quade!" He saw Clea reaching out toward him as the hatch began to open before the docking sequence had completed. She was being sucked toward the entry, a violent wind whipping her hair out behind her, and against his sense of rational that this was impossible, he reached out toward her, calling her name. But he was too late. The portal had yawned apart but it wasn't open space beyond it, it was the seething blackness of the SanFear. Clea screamed as the SanFear consumed her, stood before him on his ship.

  "I have affected what you love… what else do you love?"

  Darkness surrounded him, the dim flicker of dozens of tiny candles bouncing in a weak riot of light off the walls of Trina's bedroom. He spun around to see the outline of her as she lay sleeping within the sheer curtains, but another thing that moved beyond the bed caught his attention. A blackness cut across the candlelit room, a huge shadow obliterating the light, descending from the wall to the floor and toward the bed, and with the sound of an extinguishing breath the candles went out.

  Quade's own gasp woke him, and he pitched bolt upright in the bed.

  "Avè!"

  There was silence as he looked around. Everything was as it had been when he fell asleep; the food cart was next to the settee where he had dined, the candelabra was still lit, though dimmer, the sound of trickling water was still nearby.

  "Avè!"

  "What is it that you need, Quade?" The young girl who had brought him his food and shown him his bed stood next to him suddenly, looked at him with a curious stare.

  "I need the Avè. I need the Avè…now!"

  "The Avè is unavailable to you for the time being, Quade. I'm afraid you must wait for him until he is again ready for you."

  "I think I've had a premonition," Quade gasped, jumping from the bed. "Something horrible… worse than before. I have to go back home. I have to see the Avè!"

  "The Avè is in trance right now. Communicating with the Darbae requires much focus and concentration. He will not be ready for you for some time."

  "Then I have to go." Quade began to walk, but realized he didn't know where he was going. He was shaking, panicked. "How does one leave this place? How can I leave P'cadia?"

  "I cannot stop you from leaving, Quade. But if the Avè has requested that you stay, I must suggest that you heed that advice."

  "I can't! I'm sorry… I have to get home. Something might be happening. Something… I have to prevent! I have the Shrine of Animus, I know how to use it. I'll be back once I've done what needs to be done, but right now I have to leave. Please… can you tell me how to get out of P'cadia?"

  "I have never left P'cadia." The girl stood, stared at Quade with fixed concentration, her lips pursed together thoughtfully. "But perhaps I can tell you how to leave. Do you remember where it was that you first arrived?"

  "There was a wall," Quade paced as he spoke, trying to remember through his tattered nerves. "A wall with symbols on it that moved. I threw Trina's amulet at the wall, and it disappeared. As I reached for it, my hand sunk into the wall. After that I stepped through the wall itself, and was on the other side, in a forest. When I turned to see the wall so I could mark my position, it was no longer…."

  Quade stopped short as he was suddenly in the very forest that he'd been in when he first walked through the wall, on the path where he'd seen the ethereal guide that had brought him here. The young girl stood next to him, staring up as he looked around with relief. The other side of wall that hadn't been there before was right next to where he stood.

  "Take this with you, Quade." The girl held out to him a strangely shaped key, the handle elaborate in design, its tiled surface exquisite, the scrolling twists and curves of its make the likes of nothing he'd ever seen before. "This is your own key to P'cadia. You will need to it gain admittance when you return."

  "Thank you," he said grasping the key, and testing the wall to see if he was still able to pass his arm through it. The girl nodded her head and continued to watch him, and Quade jumped against the strange wall.

  On the other side, the sun hung a bit lower on the land, and from his perspective atop the hill that he stood upon, he could see the glint of his ship in the distance. Before Quade knew it, he'd already ran half sliding down the rocky cliffside, ran across the barren terrain and stopped at the hatch of his ship. He looked back, could see the wall that had originally led him there before. A thousand thoughts ran rampant through his mind, half a dozen voices, and uncountable images. The emissaries, Trina, Clea…

  "Have I ever told you the moonlight suits you Quade?"

  "P'cadia lost P'cadia found…"

  "It is time to test your mettle, Quade."

  "Three days, perhaps four."

  "What else do you love?"

  Quade inhaled sharply, pulled the release on the entry hatch and stumbled hastily onto his ship.

  "Quade Decairus has left P'cadia."

  The voice came from within a darkened chamber, a place that was shadowed in mystery, even from this young girl who had never left the Avè's realm in all the time she could remember.

  "Yes, Avè. He was quite insistent that he had to leave right away. He said he thought he'd had…"

  "A premonition, yes." The Avè stepped from the shadows, carrying with him the strong residual sense of a feminine presence, a warm and calm impression that clung to the air that surrounded the Avè as he walked to his apprentice. "'Tis better this way, Aliquis. I requested that he stay but in the end it would have been that I would have had to send him away with no answers."

  "There are answers to be had then?"

&
nbsp; "Indeed, many answers. Answers to things he is not yet ready to face, things that would have changed the way he thinks. For one who feels so strongly pain runs deep, and his feelings are what will give him the strength to do what he must. But for now, he need follow the path those emotions take him on, or all that he knows might be lost."

  "Will the Chosen be brought together, Avè? Will they succeed in that which is their destiny?"

  The Avè looked down to his young apprentice, into her calm and serious eyes. "You gave him your key to P'cadia, apprentice?"

  "Yes, Avè. Was this not the right thing to do?"

  "It was indeed. That is good, young Aliquis. And now 'tis time to wait and see."

  CHAPTER 26

  Quade walked to the door of his house, his hand clutching the strange instrument the Avè had given him to use to capture the SanFear. The safest place, he thought, it needs the safest place in the world to be stored. Then to the castle to check on Trina. It wasn't a romantic interlude he sought, or even to fulfill her request for him to come see her, but peace of mind that she was unharmed. He keyed the door and walked inside where dim lights welcomed him. He dismissed the thought that he hadn't remembered leaving the lights on, and stepped to a heavy shelf that was carved into the wall. Opening a deep drawer where he stored some woolen gloves for the winter season, he placed the Shrine, nestled between the cushioning gloves. Even if the planet shook beneath his house it would come to no harm within these soft confines. Next to the sphere he placed the two pouches, the suede one and the silk one, wondering how he was going to manage to retrieve the items to fill these bags. From his pocket he pulled the ornate key that the Avè’s apprentice had given him. Not knowing exactly when he might need it next, he placed it carefully in a wooden box on one of the shelves. Then he felt a stirring on the air that caused him to stop, and he turned toward his bedroom door.