CHOSEN (20 page)

“And make the same mistakes, over and over,” Fadril said. “You can blame that mess on Alurn.”

“I’d have to rewrite all the history files, and no one would believe me. The Murians didn’t become a known factor until Aolrin and the first Great War when everyone picked a side and fought until the bitter end.”

“Great War,” she muttered. “Is that what they really call it? You know there’s nothing great or grand about it, don’t you?”

Dynan was guilty of thinking of it that way, of bravery and amazing feats, and glory given to the men who fought, but he nodded anyway. He thought he might get a lecture if he didn’t agree.

“No, you don’t,” she said and heaved a sigh. “I suppose I can blame that on genetics too.”

“Yours or his?” Dynan asked. He smiled when she shot him a look. “You are the one who went after the Six with a bow and arrow.”

She couldn’t deny it, and started laughing. “All right. Yes.”

“I thought that was incredibly grand, especially since you saved my neck,” Dynan said. “And I think I forgot to thank you for it.”

“You’re welcome. You did pretty well with that sword,” she said. “You got through. I think you’re the only one who can.”

Dynan didn’t believe it did any good. “What stopped him back on the rock?”

“This place is protected,” she said. “They haven't found a way to pollute it yet. It would hurt him to cross the boundary. He remembers the last time.”

“Can they be killed? I mean, they’re already dead, so I guess not. Contained then? Stopped?”

She didn’t answer except to cast him a glance, which was answer enough. Instead, she pointed to the first set of buildings that the road went between.

“There are going to be a lot of people. They’re going to be curious. Word of you will spread like the wind. As fast as you can imagine.”

Dynan nodded, having seen the phenomenon before where people appeared out of nowhere to get a glimpse of him or of his father or the whole family. He never understood the fascination people had. He didn’t think he ever would.

“It’s good that you’re not comfortable with it,” Fadril said. “It’s a tremendous power you have.”

“I don’t really feel like I have any.”

“You shouldn’t ever let yourself be easy with what you can do.”

He wanted to ask her what it was, what was the power he supposedly had, but then they turned a corner after a whole street of colorless wood buildings. There was a long, wide road like the one that ran through the center of Rianamar, only not as long or grand in any way. It was just a road. But filling it, from one side to the other, and as far as he could see down it, were the people she warned him of.

There had to be thousands and the silence that suddenly blanketed them when they saw him was deep and shattering. They started toward him, not walking normally but inching their way forward in stumbling uncertain steps as if they were afraid to get too close, but couldn’t resist the desire at the same time.

“What...”

“I’m sorry,” Fadril said. “I should have told you. Don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt you.”

“What do they want?”

The first few people were reaching out as they came, some of them both hands at a time.

“To touch you,” she said. “It’ll protect them, so you should let them.”

He remembered what had happened with Polen, and Faulkin, and Grint, how they’d been healed instantly when he put his hands to them.

“We’re going to need as many of them as you can reach, Dynan.”

“Why?”

“If you’re right and my Alurn is here...There’s only one place they could have taken him where I wouldn’t know it.” She nodded to the masses coming at them. “We’re going to need an army to get him out.”

~*~

Chapter 17

Ambrose sensed someone in the room with him and opened his eyes to discover the First Minister standing over him with a blanket ready. Roth wadded it up and chucked it into the couch as soon as he saw that Ambrose was awake, and then flopped down into the other end.

“Don’t tell the mother hen I disturbed you,” he said, and then held up a hand when Ambrose thought to pry himself out of the corner he’d sunk into. “There’s no change. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Ambrose didn’t bother to respond to that, looking to the monitors for confirmation. It wasn’t quite true. The changes were incremental, none of them good. Dynan was still on full support. They’d put his heart back into his body but couldn’t get it to beat on its own, and he wasn’t breathing without the assistance of a machine. The longer he stayed on it, the less likely he’d ever get off.

The body had to work to maintain its strength. It didn’t take long for the degeneration to start and after three days or however many it was, the weakness was pronounced.

His skin was ashen. His cheeks were hollow. His eyes were sunken. He didn’t look sixteen anymore. No one knew how many more days it would go on, and despite trying to keep the reality of it from him, Ambrose knew it couldn’t be much longer.

Geneal Elger was the only one who talked as if Dynan would wake up the next moment.

Ambrose pulled himself to the edge of the couch, pausing there to lean on his knees. He glanced over at Roth, who was lost in his own thoughts, raking a thumb over his beard. The First Minister looked to the empty bed where Dain would have been – had he been found.

“What is it?” Ambrose asked. Roth seemed perturbed over something, but he only shook his head. “Did Eldelar say something to you? Is there something—”

“No,” Roth said quickly to allay his fears. “It isn’t about that, about Dynan.”

“Then what?”

Roth hesitated again, wincing the way he did when he was about to bring difficult news. “People have started asking questions about where they were. Some have come forward claiming to have seen them, some that are legitimate.”

“And the problem?” Ambrose asked.

“There was a girl,” Roth said. “That alone wouldn’t be the worst to come out, but this particular girl...Dain was taking care of her in a way that’s either admirable, or incredibly stupid. I haven’t sorted out which it is yet.”

“Roth—”

“Dain put her up in a house, Ambrose. He paid for her clothes, her food, everything. Her name is Bronwyn Esrel. Sweet girl.”

“You met her?” Ambrose said, hardly able to believe what he was hearing, though in a sense he wasn’t completely surprised. He already knew about Dain’s various activities with all the ladies fair. “How old is she?”

“Seventeen,” Roth said.

“Her parents—”

“Her father is Lord Poiver. Her mother, Murva, had a three-year affair with Poiver that resulted in two children. The young lady has an older brother. After she was born, Poiver moved on. The mother did too.”

“They were abandoned.”

“They don’t know who their parents are. I was able to piece it together from one of the places that kept records. You know, I always thought there were laws about these sort of things, but a lot of places and a lot of people don’t follow them at all, so you can add that to the list of things your father didn’t bother with. The two went in and out of various shelters and homes. The brother was difficult, even as a young child, and in trouble more often than not, wearing out their welcome wherever they went.”

“And now? Where is he?”

“Stationed at Colonia in the middle of his conscription. I talked to him too. He’s not so much a troublemaker any more. He wants to stay in the military and make a life of it. He sends her what he can to help, but—”

Ambrose scoffed. “A conscription wage is barely enough to pay for beer.”

“Dain met her three, four months ago in the Temple Park. He was there drawing in one of his sketchbooks. Your children escape this place to do the damndest things, Ambrose...They talked. There was a connection. She tells me that a time or two later, he found out she was living under the stairs at Haverts and decided he wouldn’t have it.”

“How does Dain have a house in Rianamar without the world knowing about it? Forget about me not knowing it for a moment. How did he do it?”

At that, Roth reached into his coat pocket and produced a gold coin that he examined for a moment before handing it over. Ambrose saw the stamp and realized where it came from, and why Dain had come to visit him the other day getting ready for dinner. “Will it do any good at all to change the code?”

“Probably not,” Roth said. “We already have the smartest people on all three planets working on the equations that determine these codes, so if Dain can break them, he can break into anything. It’s your fault they ended up so smart.”

“Not smart enough to realize he can go into the finance directory and give himself a larger allowance without having to break into the vault. That’s a lot of stairs to go up and down and around in that tower.”

“He didn’t know the Chocolate Shop owner would recognize where this came from,” Roth said.

“Zinder is still there?” Ambrose asked.

“His son runs the place, but the old man sits behind the counter and talks to everyone. When he heard what happened, he brought this in to let us know there may be a trail of them to follow through town. So far there’s just one other at the art gallery. Dain had some of his paintings framed.”

“If he had a house in Rianamar in his name, Roth—”

“Ames Lithford set it up for him, and Dain paid him. He’s the only one of them old enough to make a contract. Solen is going to put it out for us that he gave Ames the apartment as an early graduation gift, and if necessary say that the girl was a housekeeper he hired to keep the place up, a well dressed housekeeper, but it’ll hold. And then he plans to have a conversation with Ames about bad judgment.”

Ambrose shook his head at that, feeling like he ought to be mad about it, but couldn’t manage it. “He’s in love with her,” he said quietly, trying not to think she might be the last girl that ever happened with.

“It seems so,” Roth said.

“Where is she now?”

“In a town on the other side of the world,” Roth said, and Ambrose noted that he didn’t mention where. “I bought her a stake in a local dress shop and changed her name. Her brother too. He’s being transferred to another base.”

“Buying them off for their silence? I swore I’d never do this to them,” Ambrose said and Roth nodded.

“Well, you swore it to yourself when you were seventeen, and your father threatened to make a public spectacle of your remotely similar situation. A threat we now know he never intended to follow through on. You’re not like him, Ambrose. If you’d found this out under normal circumstances, you’d talk to your son and get him to realize the relationship would never work. Beside the fact that they’re children. Dain will understand in time. And Bronwyn will have a chance at a much better life this way. Marry, settle down, have children. She’d never have that with Dain.”

“She agreed?”

“Reluctantly,” Roth said. He leaned on his knees, rubbing his face a moment. “She always knew it would end eventually. This way, with this new life, the ending won’t be so difficult. For her, at least.”

“Maybe it won’t matter,” Ambrose muttered when he’d meant to keep that horror to himself.

Dain still couldn’t be found. There wasn’t a trace of him - anywhere, despite the massive number of people scouring the city looking for him. Every day that went by without finding him alive the probability rose they never would.

Ambrose looked to the monitor and brain scan readings that remained unmoving, and the thought crept in that it might already be the case. Dain was dead. Because of the connection they shared, the unbreakable bond that mystified so many, Dynan had gone with him. That was why his brain scan was nonexistent. It was only a matter of time before the official declaration would have to be given. They wouldn’t let him keep Dynan on artificial support indefinitely.

Roth pushed himself to his feet and Ambrose watched while he moved to Dynan’s bedside where he took his hand, frowning for a moment at the slight cuts across his fingers before folding his hand around his. “Governor Alse was here last night—”

“No.”

“He wanted to see Dynan.”

“No.”

“Xavier convinced him to back off of it. Governor Taldic issued a statement that he’d seen Dynan. But you know it won’t be but a few more days of this before Alse will come back, demanding—”

“I’ll name Shalis and then when Dynan is better—”

“Alse wants you to name Kamien,” Roth said quietly, and Ambrose couldn’t answer for a moment.

“All right,” he said when he could trust his voice. “I don’t have a problem with that, but as you know, the Trameil haters will come out in force. There are quite a few of them left even after all this time. Not to mention there is that declaration signed by my father, and the succession committee, and the First Governor making that marriage void and Kamien ineligible for the Throne. Can’t someone remind Governor Alse that his father - in order to avoid the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit murder - went along with the whole thing? Shall I go remind him?”

“Probably not a good idea,” Roth said, and sat on the edge of the bed.

“No, probably not.”

“I’m sorry,” Roth said.

Ambrose pulled to his feet, suppressing a groan at the stiffness of his joints. He felt old. It was an affliction that had come on him overnight, brought on by lack of sleep, no food and anything remotely resembling comfort.

“I’ll talk to Xavier,” he said, clapping Roth on the back to make him feel better. Of all the Surrogates, Roth was taking it the worst. “Will you stay with him?”

“Of course.”

Ambrose left his son’s room for only the second time and found the hall outside just as jarring as the last. It was brightly lit. There were people everywhere. Granted, Ambrose knew them all, but didn’t have any capacity to deal with them.

In the next room he found his youngest crying in the arms of his oldest while her Lady in Waiting sat on a footstool holding her hand. Shalis had been brought to City Medical yesterday. Ambrose didn’t want to leave her at the Palace alone. He looked to Kamien for an explanation for the tears, but he didn’t want to give it.