Chosen of the Gods

Chapter Six

The sun sank behind the Kharolis mountains, setting the clouds ablaze and flooding the valleys with shadow. On any ordinary evening, the town of Xak Khalan, a scattering of slate-roofed houses nestled in one of those valleys, would have been thriving: children playing beside the riverbank while their mothers stirred pots over outdoor cooking fires; rough, bearded woodcutters sharpening their axes for the next day’s work; old graybeards sitting on logs and swapping tall tales about how, when they were young, they’d spied a band of centaurs or kissed a dryad in the wild woods to the west. Later, folk might have gathered about a fire to dance or gone to a nearby hollow to listen to a wandering poet, while the moons’ red-silver light streamed down through the boughs of aspen and oak. It was a small town, and poor-particularly compared with the pillared, greenstone halls of the city of Xak Tsaroth two days to the south-but the people were happy with their simple lives.

Tonight, however, was no ordinary night.

Word had spread quickly when the First Daughter of Paladine came to town, accompanied by a dozen Knights from the fields of Solamnia to the north. That had been yesterday, and today the lumberjacks hadn’t gone out into the forests, keeping near home to see what was afoot It had been years since any priest higher than Falinor, the local Revered Son, had come to Xak Khalan, and talk had flown thicker among the villagers than the blackflies that hummed in the summer breeze. At last, as the westering sun began to dip behind the jagged peaks, the sound of silver bells filled the valley, and folk answered the call, flocking out of town until all that moved in Xak Khalan were a few stray goats and the creaking wheel of the mill. They went east, roughly six hundred in all, following a stone-paved path up the edge of the valley to where the church stood.

The town’s houses and shops were plain, but its temple was not. When Kharolis adopted the Istaran Church as its faith more than a century ago, the people had abandoned the forest glades and stone rings where they once worshiped, choosing to build high, domed halls in Paladine’s name. Xak Khalan’s church was nothing beside the cathedrals of Xak Tsaroth and downright tiny compared with the sprawling temples of the east, but it was still fine, its seven copper spires burning crimson in the twilight Lush ivy crawled up its stone walls, and its tall, brass-bound doors stood open, beckoning. Within, its stained windows cast shafts of blue and green light through the worship hall, falling over oaken pews and frescoed walls, serpentine-tiled floor, and a triangular altar of white stone. Smoke from a dozen incense burners and scores of candles eddied in the glow, making it look as if the vaulted chamber were underwater. The bells chimed on, falling still only when the last of the pilgrims from Xak Khalan had taken their seats.

llista stood by the altar, clad in her ceremonial vestments- silvery cassock, white surplice fringed with violet, and amethyst circlet-and laving her hands in a golden bowl. She kept her back to the villagers, staring up at the domed ceiling. The mosaic there was crude by Istaran standards but had a primal force the eastern artisans lacked. It showed Paladine as the Valiant Warrior, a white-bearded knight astride a cream-colored charger, thrusting a lance into the heart of a five-headed serpent. She focused on the god’s image, her lips moving in prayer.

“Please,” she implored. “Let this be the one.”

She had first performed the Apanfo, the Rite of Testing, in Palanthas, two days after she and Sir Gareth made port. The patriarch there had listened to the tale of her dream, and the figure of light, and told her yes, there was one among his clerics who might well be the one she sought. He was called Brother Tybalt, a middle-aged priest who could conjure water out of dry air. If anyone in Palanthas was the one she sought, the patriarch told her, it was him.

She had looked on as Tybalt prayed to the god, holding his hands over an electrum basin, and watched with amazement as the flesh of his palms opened and clear, cold water instead of blood flowed forth to fill the bowl. The miracle was one thing, however; the Apanfo was something else. The Rite of Testing had found him wanting, his character flawed with pride in his own powers. Dista wasn’t sure how the rite would reveal the Lightbringer to her, but whatever the case, by the time the prayer ended she had known it wasn’t him. Disheartened, she had assured the patriarch that while Brother Tybalt was a fine priest, he was not the one she sought. After that, she had turned her eyes hopefully to the road before her.

So it had gone, as she and Sir Gareth’s Knights wended their way across Solamnia’s plains, from city to town, castle to monastery, never staying in one place for more than a day or two. Time and again, the clergy had brought forth its brightest lights, men and boys who could work all manner of wonders through their faith, and time and again they had failed. Always, there was something lacking. The old graybeard in Vingaard loved his wine too much; the young initiate at the abbey near Archester nurtured lustful thoughts about a girl in town. The tall, swarthy deacon at Garen’s Ford doubted his own faith, questioning whether he’d chosen rightly in swearing his vows, and the cherubic scholar in Solanthus had once struck a novice in a rage. They were good men all, but the hoped-for revelation never happened when she spoke the Rite. None was the one, and each time it grew harder to look ahead with hope as she and the Knights set forth again.

Finally, they had left Solamnia, passing beneath the tall, white arches that marked its border. The fields gave way to hills, and then to mountains. That had been eight days ago, and she had tested no one in that time. Kharolis was a sparse kingdom, with only two great cities: Xak Tsaroth in the north and seaside Tarsis in the south. Other than that it was wilderness, deep forests and rolling grasslands where barbarian horsemen ruled. The hinterlands seemed an unlikely place to find the man she had dreamt of.

Then they had come to Xak Khalan, and things had changed. Revered Son Falinor, a bald, stoop-shouldered priest of more than eighty winters, had listened to her tale, then nodded, telling her of one of his charges, a young priest who could purify spoiled food with a kiss. As always, she had demanded proof of the boy’s powers and watched, impressed, as he pressed his lips to a moldy ear of corn and the blight lifted from it, leaving ripe, golden kernels behind. So, here she stood in Xak Khalan’s hillside church, ready to work the Rite one more time.

She removed her holy medallion and dipped her fingers in the bowl, dripping water on each of the amulet’s three corners. “Patodo Calb, flina fo,” she prayed in the church tongue. “Mas auasfud, tus mubofesum.”

Blessed Paladine, I am blind. Be thou my eyes, that I may see.

She turned, looking out at the expectant faces of the townsfolk. She had looked at thousands of those faces, these past months, watched their anticipation change to disappointment again and again. Behind them stood the temple’s clerics, three dozen in all, the bent form of Revered Son Falinor smiling toothlessly in their midst. On her left were Sir Gareth and his men: ten young Knights of the Crown, their armor gleaming in the turquoise light. To her right was an alcove, separated from the rest of the worship hall by a curtain of pale blue velvet. She could sense the man behind it, waiting as she signed the triangle over the assembly.

Merciful god, she thought. Let it be him…

Among the holy items laid out on the altar was a chime of violet glass. She lifted it and flicked it with her finger, three times. Its pure tones filled the hall.

“Aponfud, tipobulfatfumgonneis” she intoned. “Bridud,e tambimud.”

Come hither, thou who would be tested. Approach, and name thyself.

The blue curtain pulled back, and a stout, fair-haired man appeared, clad in heavy robes covered in gold embroidery. A murmur rippled through the onlookers as the young priest stepped out of the alcove and crossed to Ilista. His eyes were downcast and stayed on the floor as he knelt before her.

“Fro Gesseic, usas lupofo,” he murmured. “Praso megonnas.”

I am Brother Gesseic, beloved of the gods. I ask to be tested.

Ilista nodded, examining the young man’s face. He was handsome, in a rough way-a woodsman’s son who had heard Paladine’s call. There was a humility about him that she hadn’t seen often in Solamnia and rarer still in Istar. It was a good sign. She caught herself biting her lip as she set down the chime and took up a golden ewer filled with sweet oil. Carefully, she raised it, saluting the silver triangle over the temple’s entrance, then poured a dollop on Gesseic’s head. As it dripped, glistening, from his sandy hair, darkening his robes where it fell, she touched her medallion to his forehead and closed her eyes.

The church fell silent, the townsfolk watching in open-mouthed awe as the Apanfo began, but Ilista didn’t notice. A wizard could have cast a fireball in the middle of the room and she wouldn’t have flinched. She turned inward, focusing, and felt her breath slow as she reached out, through the medallion. Gesseic’s mind lay before her, many-layered, like the petals of a white rose. She had seen many such roses lately, all of them beautiful, but each hid a blemish-some small flaw that marked them as impure. Holding her breath, she reached out to peel back the first layer…

… the rose vanished, and she was somewhere else: a moun-taintop, mantled in snow, looming so high clouds scudded beneath her. The air was sharp, chilly, the sky dark and dusted with more stars than she had ever seen-great clouds of them, as dense as sand on a dune. She cast about, startled. This was new, different.

Something stirred in the corner of her eye, and she saw him, standing in the snow, watching her. Gesseic did not speak, but a glad smile lit his face as he stepped toward her.

It’s him! she thought, triumph surging through her. After all the time she’d looked, she’d found the one. The Iightbringer. The god’s chosen. She imagined him mantled in light, stopping armies with a wave of his hand. They would return to the Lord-city together, welcomed with song and laughter, the streets adrift with rose petals. She lifted her gaze to the starry sky. It’s him, Paladine be praised, it’s him, it’s him!

When she looked again, her joy faltered. Gesseic had changed-shrunk, she thought at first, then she realized she was looking on him not as he was now, but as the child he once had been. She had peeled the layers all the way back to his boyhood memories-seven summers old, or about, though the eyes were still an adult’s.

She was so intent on studying his face that it took her a moment to see the wasp. Ilista gasped-it was huge, the size of a hummingbird, its carapace the color of polished jet. She could see its stinger as it crawled along his arm, poised a hair’s breadth from the skin of Gesseic’s wrist.

She hissed, pointing. Gesseic looked, raising his arm. The wasp buried the stinger in his flesh.

The pain in his voice as he cried out made her wince, and her own arm flared in sympathy as he smashed the wasp. Then, his arm already swelling from its venom, he lifted its mashed form by a wing and stared at it, his face creased with agony. Though half-crushed, it wasn’t dead, and the horrid thing writhed in his grasp.

His eyes darkened with anger, and Ilista felt hope slip away. “No!” she cried, already knowing what was going to happen. “Don’t!”

Gesseic didn’t listen. Reaching up, he grabbed another twitching wing and ripped it off. His lips curled into a vengeful grin…

With a sudden rush, the mountaintop vanished, and she was back in the temple, staring at the young priest as a shudder ran through him. A groan burst from his lips as he remembered killing the wasp. It was the smallest of flaws, a flash of childhood meanness, but he knew, as well as Dista did, what it meant. He had taken joy in tormenting another creature. He was impure.

With a sorrowing sigh she pulled back, lifting her medallion away. It left a red mark on his skin as he bowed his head and sobbed. A murmur of dismay ran through the congregation. Ilista bowed her head. She’d been so sure, for a moment.

“Ubastud, usas farno,” she bade.

Rise, child of the god.

He did, tears in his eyes, and trembled as she bent to kiss him on both cheeks. She felt hollow inside, lost Another failure, another hope come to nothing. Despair clutched at her, but she fought it back. The Rite wasn’t yet done; she had to finish it.

“Porud, Fro, e ni sonud mos,” she declared, signing the triangle over him. “Sifat”

Go forth, Brother, and do no wrong. So be it.

“Forgive me,” he said. Wet tracks ran down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

She wanted to tell him there was nothing to be sorry for, that he was a good man and a fine priest, even though he wasn’t the one she sought. She wanted to lay a reassuring hand on his arm or even to embrace him, hold him while he cried. It was against the ritual, though, and she could only stand still, watching with all the austerity she could muster, as he turned and walked, sobbing, back toward the alcove. The last thing she saw, before her own tears blinded her, was the desolation in his face as he drew the curtain shut.

She was still seeing his face at midnight, as she stood alone in the temple, putting away the instruments of the ritual. Gesseic wasn’t the only one who felt betrayed-behind him stood a dozen other priests, the ones she had tested in Solamnia, and behind them were Revered Son Falinor and the folk of Xak Khalan. All of them stared at her in her mind, hurt and angry.

She had let them all taste, however briefly, the hope of true holiness, something beyond the mere piety of priesthood-and she had let them all down, proving they were merely human.

Who are you to judge? they asked her silently as she laid the glass chime in a padded, lacquered box. Are you so untainted yourself, to think you know purity?

Yet, she did know. She remembered the elation that had run through her when she’d dreamed of the Lightbringer. Brother Gesseic had come closer than the others, but even he had fallen short, hadn’t given her the same feeling.

She looked up at the god on the mosaic. It was dark outside now, and the blue-green glow had yielded to the gold of candlelight. “Why did you choose me?” she asked. “I can’t do this any more. I don’t have the strength…”

A cough broke the stillness, and she gasped, looking down. Even the clerics had left her alone-whether out of respect for her own sorrow, or resentment, she couldn’t say. The noise was loud amid the stillness. Her hand went to her medallion as she backed into the altar, staring at the figure framed in the doors. For a moment she thought it might be some villager, angry enough to seek revenge upon her, but when the figure stepped forward she saw the light glint on antique armor, and deepen the hard lines of Sir Gareth’s face. He had been waiting just outside, she knew, watching for trouble.

“Efisa?” he asked. “Are you well? I heard voices-”

She shook her head. “It was just me. Come in, Gareth.”

He did, looking uncertain as he shut the door. He strode toward her, armor rattling, then stopped a respectful distance away and stood erect, hands clasped behind his back.

“My men have secured provisions,” he said. “We stand ready to march at your word.”

“Very good,” she replied. “We shall leave for Xak Tsaroth at dawn.” There was no point in lingering here when she was unwelcome. She sighed, tugging her sleeves. “Tell me, Gareth- do you think me a fool?”

The Knight’s moustache twitched. “Efisa?”

She waved her hand, taking in the whole hall. “You saw what happened here,” she said. “That boy could have been a great priest. The god is in him-but after today, I’m not sure I’d blame him if he quit the clergy.”

“Ah,” Gareth replied, looking uncomfortable. She hadn’t spoken like this to him before.

“You know what I’m searching for. Am I a fool for doing so?”

“My lady, Draco Paladin himself bade you undertake this quest,” he said slowly, choosing each word with care. “The god doesn’t send his servants on fool’s errands.”

Ilista shook her head. “You’re a man of great faith, Gareth.”

The Knight shrugged.

He remained as she finished packing her trappings, then they left the temple together, making their way down the path to Xak Khalan. They left the accouterments behind. Gareth’s men would come later to fetch them. He did his best to guide her around the town, keeping to its perimeter and out of sight, but even so she could feel the stares of those villagers who were still awake, the resentful looks that always seemed to follow her when she left a place. She repeated Gareth’s words, telling herself she was working Paladine’s will, but it didn’t make her feel much better.

They had made camp on a hilltop overlooking the town, pitching tents amid the crumbling, vine-choked walls of what once-centuries ago, from the looks-had been a small keep. Two Knights met them as they climbed the path to the ruins and fell in alongside, carrying torches to light their way. Most of the others were still awake amid the cluster of tents and campfires, sharpening their swords and polishing their shields. They stood and bowed as Dista passed.

The feeling that something was wrong struck her as soon as she saw her tent, but she didn’t know why. She frowned as she regarded it: a pavilion of white and violet silk, the sacred triangle mounted on a pole before it, another hung above the…

She stopped suddenly, catching her breath. “The flap. It’s open.”

The Knights snapped to a halt, and Gareth stepped forward, sword half-drawn. She had pinned the flap closed that afternoon, before setting forth to perform the Apanfo. Now it hung loose, waving in the evening breeze.

One of the younger Knights swore under his breath. The other coughed softly. Gareth glared at them both. They were the same pair he’d set on guard duty while the rest attended the ritual, newly dubbed boys who couldn’t be much more than twenty.

“Jurabin, Laonis,” he growled. “If any harm has come to Her Grace’s belongings, I’ll have both your spurs. Get the others.”

Their faces pale, the Knights turned and hurried away. In moments they were back with the rest of the Knights, bare swords in hand. Half fell in around Ilista, forming a ring about her. The rest gathered by Gareth, awaiting his orders. He dispatched them quickly, sending two to watch the tent’s other side, and putting two more to either side of the entrance. His face grim, he crept forward. His blade rasped free of its scabbard, and he used it to flip the flap wide, then stepped inside. Jurabin and Laonis followed, torches in hand.

Ilista tensed, waiting for the sound of ringing steel. Instead, all was silent for a long moment, then the flap flew aside again and Gareth emerged. He still had his sword, but in his hand was something else.

“There’s no one within, Efisa,” he said, Jurabin and Laonis still searching behind him, “but I found this.”

He held it up, a roll of rough parchment, tied with plain hempen cord. It bore no seal. She stared at it, swallowing, then reached out and took it from his hand. Her fingers trembled as she untied the cord and unfurled it. It was two sheets, in fact, not one. The first, she saw, was a map of some sort. She gave it a quick, frowning glance, then turned to the second page, and her breath left her in a rush.

You have traveled far, First Daughter, it read, but your journey nears its end. Go not to Xdk Tsaroth but into the mountains. Follow the map.

I have been awaiting you. I am the Lightbringer.