CHOSEN (17 page)

Adiem laughed when in a panic Dynan kept trying to get them off. “They don’t come off,” he said, pushing him down on the cot again. “Not for you.”

Dynan tried to jerk away when Adiem took him by the wrist, but the effort was useless. Adiem took hold of the black worm, twisting it between his fingers. The back of it detached, but the head remained imbedded. There was an inner shell to the thing, and as Dynan watched, it started to fill up again.

Adiem was absorbed with the other part, rolling it between his fingers for a second before he suddenly put it in his mouth. Adiem closed his eyes in obvious pleasure. He threw his head back, laughing.

“Now that is an exquisite delicacy, my young friend.” He leaned over Dynan, pressing him into the cot. “And now you have some idea what you are here for. You’ll be feeding us for quite some time to come. Ages, in fact.”

He plucked off another worm, and popped it into his mouth like he was eating a piece of candy. Dynan shrank away from him, thrashing against the iron grip on his wrist. Adiem took another of the worms, bit it in half and tossed it over his shoulder where a pack of spike-headed, hairless dogs fell to fighting over the morsel.

Adiem laughed at him, and then let him go.

The next instant, strands of rope threaded around Dynan’s arms and legs, moving by some invisible command to tie him to the cot so he couldn’t escape.

Adiem was in his head the next moment, showing Dynan more horrors, and then tortured him with visions of water and food he couldn’t get to. Hot knives, barbed spikes, and hooks sank into him. In his mind, his arms and legs were torn off one by one.

The dark was always there, but the dark didn’t bring any relief. So he traveled, strapped to a cot of tattered cloth, screaming and thrashing from terror and pain.

He didn’t know how long they moved that way with Adiem walking beside him while Dynan lay in writhing agony, only that it went on and on. So when they finally stopped, and he was set on the ground and released, anticipation of worse to come filled his mind.

As the realization came that he wasn’t being tortured anymore, anger replaced fear, and a kind of resolve that started deep down within. He thought if he could do nothing else in this long nightmare, he’d not give them any more satisfaction. He wouldn’t cooperate. He wouldn’t help them do whatever it was they wanted without fighting them, even if fighting them didn’t work.

There wasn’t any purpose to being afraid anymore. He’d gotten through the horror of the river, and reasoned he could get through anything else after that. Of course it was easier thought than accomplished. Not knowing what was next didn’t help tenuous courage, but he pulled himself up from the cot cautiously, body taut, ready for whatever.

A sheltered cove of rock situated among the greater boulders of the mountain surrounded them. There remained the half-light of monochromatic gray mixing with the ruddy color of the stone. Around Adiem the dark gathered like a cloak.

Half amused and with a look of curiosity, Adiem watched him. The four men who’d carried the cot were fawning over him at his feet. The dogs followed him. Adiem waved his hand impatiently at them all and they scampered away, crying in their fear of him. They hid themselves in a corner of boulders.

“What do you want with me,” Dynan said, hoping he could find a way out of it, or at least be ready for it. He gestured to the worms still hanging off him. “Other than the snacks?”

Adiem laughed, a sound that sent a shiver up Dynan’s spine. It made him want to hide in a hole too. “Well, in a short time, shorter than you’ll like, you’re going to call your brother and bring him to us. And then we’re going to fulfill a thousand year prophecy that I foresaw so long ago. One of you alive so that we may slake the altar with living blood. One of you dead. That would be you. You’ll spend the rest of existence holding open the gateway. It isn’t going to be very pleasant for you, but that’s what you get when you’re a son of Alurn.”

“All of this is so the demon can get out,” Dynan said, trying not to sound terrified of it.

“Yes.”

“The Gods won’t let you.”

Adiem scoffed. “They can barely contain us as it is. This time will be different, little Princeling. There are six of us. It’s why you were born and why others were born to counter our numbers, but there aren’t enough of you. After we’re finished of course, there won’t be any. Your ignorance weakens you. No one bothered to prepare you for this. I suspect no one even told you what you are. It’s the way they operate. So no, the Gods won’t be capable of responding. You see, we’re going to kill one of them. That will change things quite a bit.”

“Kill one of the Gods?” Dynan said. “How do you...It isn’t possible. You’re only going to succeed in bringing them down here to destroy you.”

“You’re wrong. You’ll see. Soon.”

“I’m not going to do it,” Dynan said.

“You will.” Adiem seemed so much more confident of his answers than Dynan was of his.

He shook his head though. “I’m not going to bring Dain here. He won’t come.”

“He’ll come. He thinks he can save you.”

“I’ll tell him not to,” Dynan said, hoping against hope that maybe this time Dain would listen. “He isn’t stupid. He’ll see the risks. He’ll see right through you. But that’s only if you get through to him without me.”

“He’ll come when he sees what’s happening to you,” Adiem said, and smiled about it.

Dynan thought he was probably right, which meant he had to convince Dain, somehow, as quickly as possible not to believe anything he was seeing. If Dynan could get through to him, he might be able to stop him. He just had to get him to believe that it was all a trap, and coming would only make things worse.

Dynan had to stop himself from thinking that Dain being here with him wouldn’t be worse. For a split second he thought having Dain here might be the only way to save them all.

“He’ll come,” Adiem said. “You want him here.”

“What happened to you?” Dynan asked to get him off the subject of his brother. “Polen said you didn’t start out this way. You and Alurn used to care about each other.”

Adiem stopped smiling, but his teeth still showed under a snarling glare. Dynan backed away from him. He wanted to run, but the wall of rock stopped him.

“Alurn never cared about me. Ever. He only cared about amassing as much power as he could. He didn’t care what he did to get it. Do you know how many people died because of him? And when I found out he was being used as a means to an end, when I found out the truth, I warned him. Did he listen to me? No, he came back with these wild excuses about how I was causing all of it. And then he made a pact that would allow him to survive, but would leave me here. Every time they found one of us, they put us in here, one by one. Look around you. Don’t you want to get out?”

Adiem took him by either side of his face for a second, his breath smelling of death. “You of all people should know you can’t believe everything you hear. Such a trusting soul. Now, no more talk of Alurn. We’re going to sit here quietly and wait.”

“It’s funny,” Dynan said before Adiem could step away. “No one knows who you are. No one knows Alurn even had a brother. And here you sit, still trying to be better than him, to take the Kingdom he made that’s lasted a thousand years. I almost feel sorry for—”

Excruciating pain cut off his voice. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t get any air to make a sound. His body jerked in spasms, but he was held on his feet. Through the haze of agony, he thought maybe he’d just succeeded in ruining their plans.

Everything was exploding from the inside, and being a lump of charred nothing wouldn’t bring Dain here. Dynan held onto that thought, concentrated on it as hard as he knew how so that he wouldn’t start begging Adiem to stop.

It didn’t take more than a second longer for thoughts of self-sacrifice to vanish. Dynan knew he’d do anything they wanted him to, and he wanted more than anything to tell Adiem he’d changed his mind, except he still couldn’t breathe to form the words.

He felt the ground then. He hit his head against it when he fell, which meant he’d been let go. He managed to gasp out the one word he’d been trying to say, at the same time he realized the pain had already stopped.

He lay shaking for a moment longer, afraid it was going to start up again, but then there were hands on him, gently picking him up. It was so incongruous to what he’d just gone through, it forced his eyes to focus.

Adiem wasn’t leering or smiling manically. He wasn’t angry, but seemed almost sorry for what had happened. Dynan knew this one wasn’t the same. This was another of the Six.

“I thought he wasn’t the one for this,” this version of Adiem said, frowning briefly as he helped Dynan lean up against a boulder before sitting back to look at him. “I told them not to under estimate you just because you’re so young. We don’t always agree about the details. They didn’t listen and so you were able to throw the Fourth into a blind rage with amazing ease.”

“The Fourth?” Dynan asked when he meant to not say anything at all. This one was so relaxed and uncreepy it was easy to forget who he was.

“I’m the Second. Third is off dealing with another quadrant of the realm. I’m probably the last one you’re going to want to deal with. The First – now he is a cold, cruel bastard. I suppose that’s why he’s so well loved around here. I’m not quite like him though.”

Adiem stood and went to the place in the shelf where the boulders weren’t so high, and looked out. It was still darker than usual. As soon as he moved away, Dynan rolled to his feet and started looking around for a way to escape. There was only rock though and no clear way out. What he wanted now was a ledge to throw himself off of. At this point, anything was better than facing their plans for him. He was certain now he wouldn’t be able to.

The thought crept in that he and Dain together might be able to face it and maybe even stop them. Dynan realized that’s what they wanted him to think and could be telling him to think. Adiem smirked then, half laughing to himself.

“You are perceptive,” he said. “I told them that too.”

“I’m not going to do it. I don’t care what you do to me.”

“You certainly are my brother’s son,” Adiem said. “Some would call it stupidity to exhibit such determined defiance in the face of certain defeat, but with you, I’d say it was genetically engrained. You remind me of him. It’s unfortunate that you’ll meet under less than ideal circumstances.”

Adiem frowned and shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Dynan,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be this horrific, torturous end you’ve imagined or maybe been told about.”

“The other guy said you’d be feeding off me for Ages, so why should I believe you, after what he did?”

Adiem thought about it as he walked over. “I’m Second and he’s not? He said it to frighten you. He’s jealous of the power you hold. He’s insecure. Deranged. I could go on. Of course, he’s wrong. No one is going to feed off you. Though it is tempting. It’s not good news for you.”

“I know what you want to do.”

“Do you? Your brother is going to come through to us whole. We need his living blood, and we’re going to get it. Once that’s done, we’ll take your soul, the source of all that power. I’m sorry to say, you don’t have much more time to accept the situation.”

He reached over and pulled off one of the dangling worms. Dynan willed himself not to cringe away from him and only partially succeeded. The step back was involuntary.

Adiem took the worm and crushed it in his hand until it burst. What came out, dripping through his fingers and across his open palm was the same viscous, glowing substance the dogs went after.

“This,” Adiem said, holding out his hand. “This is life, and you’re going to give it to us.”

“You’re going to take it from me,” Dynan said, feeling the distinction was a pretty important one.

“All right. Yes. True.”

“Why do you have Alurn?”

“We need him, as much as it pains me to say it. His spirit, surviving among the living, gives them power and takes power from us. You’ll be taken before him, so you won’t have to watch, last as he was first. And now, you know what to expect, not that it will help much, but it might give you enough courage to face the end of your existence,” Adiem said, gesturing to the center of the shelf and then purposefully guided Dynan to stand there. “It’s time.”

Adiem nodded, and then pointed to a space a few kem in front of them that was suddenly different from everything else, distorted around the edges and expanding.

“Your brother is here,” Adiem said, putting a hand on Dynan’s back.

It was true. Dain stood inside the distortion staring in growing, stunned awareness. “Dynan?”

Dynan meant to tell him to run, but the ability to speak was taken from him. Pain descended but he was forced to stand and endure it.

“Dynan?”

“Tell him you need him,” Adiem said quietly. “Hold out your hand to him. Do it. Now.”

His arm rose, his hand reached, while his mind screamed from pain and knowledge that Adiem was right. He saw it all happen in a flash, Dain here with him, dying on an altar of blood, Dynan’s soul taken, a separation that would last an eternity.

“Tell him,” Adiem said, the pressure and pain increasing.

“Dain, I need you here,” he said and saw his fingers curling open. In moments, it would be too late to stop him.

“Who is that?” he asked, and Dynan saw that he was distracted by something or maybe someone with him.

“Tell him you found Alurn.”

“I found Alurn, Dain. He needs your help to come back.”

“That was a nice touch,” Adiem said and let him breathe.

The second the pressure eased enough that Dynan could gasp he jerked his hand closed. His fingers balled into a fist. He formed a single thought, reaching across the chasm to his brother, who heard him as clearly as if he was standing next to him. In a flash of wordless images, Dynan showed him that it was all a terrible trap.

Adiem yanked back on him, snuffing out the air he’d only just drawn in, and then threw him to the ground in an effort to get around him, reaching for Dain.