Chosen (26 page)
‘I do not ‘blurt’,’ said
Elkeira, sounding hurt by the accusation.
‘Maxine is right,’ said Tallon,
‘in fact, to be on the safe side, do not say anything at all.’
Elkeira pouted sullenly the way only a teenager can.
Max looked again at Haven, his
face had turned ashen. ‘You must be in a lot of pain,’ she said
gently brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, ‘would you like
me to try some healing?’
‘No,’ said Haven grimacing from
the reverberation of his own voice, ‘we must try and keep the
extent of our abilities from him, I’m getting a lot of deception
from him but I can’t get what it’s about.’
‘No doubt we will find out soon
enough,’ said Gilster, as the door began to open.
‘No one is to tell him Gilster
is a singer,’ hissed Haven, ‘that’s vital, something about singers
is very important to him.’ They all nodded.
‘All is ready,’ said Benitoff
proudly, ‘enjoy.’
Upon entering, their eyes were
met with a scene of splendour. The room was exquisitely decorated,
more so than the throne room. The ceiling was painted gold with
five, huge chandeliers hanging from golden chains, each covered
with hundreds of candles. The walls were dark wooden panelling
covered with paintings, each depicting a scene from everyday life;
from hunting and farming to smiling families dressed in their
finery. Two fires blazed in giant stone hearths, one to the left of
the table and one to the right, the mantelpieces were higher than
the top of Haven’s head. Under foot was a thick, plush carpet
deadening their footsteps as the wandered around looking at each
treasure. The dining table was easily twenty feet long and covered
with a cream, damask table cloth. Gold plates, gold cutlery and
crystal goblets were set upon it with military precision, drawing a
sigh of wonderment from the guests. But the biggest surprise was
the amount of food on giant golden platters covering the table.
‘Surely this can’t be all for us,’ thought Max.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ said
Benitoff beaming with pride at their stunned faces. ‘Please, be
seated.’
The chairs were ornately carved
with a different animal head atop each back-rest. Benitoff’s chair
at the head of the table was twice the size of everyone else’s but
not as big as his throne. Gilster sat to Benitoffs’ right, next to
Max and then Haven, Tallon sat to his left with Elkeira next to
him.
‘Help yourselves to whatever it
is you would like, there is plenty more where this came from.’
‘More!’ shrieked Elkeira in
shock, never had she seen this much grand food in one place before.
She began piling food on her plate, wanting to taste
everything.
Tallon laughed. ‘Not too much
little sister, you do not want to burst.’ Everyone began to fill
their plates. Haven just picked, his head throbbing in agony.
When the meal was over and
servants had removed all the plates they sat congenially around the
table, goblets of wine in hand. ‘Now,’ said Benitoff, ‘the time has
come for me to tell you a story, it is a story of greed, corruption
and murder, the story of my world. But, before I begin,’ he said
suddenly staring intently at Gilster, ‘you never did tell me what
your gift is. What is it that you do?’
‘Oh, nothing much sire,’ said
Gilster casually, ‘just a small bit of healing.’ He smiled at
Benitoff. Benitoff continued staring, the tension around the table
mounted, no one spoke. Then he smiled.
‘You must show me one day,’ he
said.
‘Of course sire, smiled
Gilster.’
He began to tell the
story.
‘Millennia ago, two beings
arrived, they were not of this world. Their names were Anubis and
Epona. Anubis had no interest in this world in the beginning and
left everything to Epona, she had a vision of a world filled with
light and beauty, a world where all people would be happy and all
their worries would be gone. They wouldn’t have to struggle to
survive and life would be wonderful and carefree. So she set about
building this world for her ‘children’ as she called them. But as
is always the way with humans, they weren’t content, they had
nothing to strive for, no challenges to face and so they became
bored, and with boredom came bitterness. Who was this outsider who
had come into their midst and decided how their world should be?
Surely it should be up to them what sort of world they wanted to
live in. Not everyone felt this way, but they were by far a very
small minority. Eventually a conclusion was reached by the masses,
she must be stopped, perhaps even removed. They sent a delegation
to meet with Anubis and asked if he could accomplish this for them,
if he did they would forever be his people and not Eponas. Epona
was heartbroken; her children had turned their backs on her. So she
fled to a distant part of the world to lick her wounds. The few
loyal children that remained to her built small shrines so they
could still speak to their ‘mother’, this they did in secret.
Anubis agreed to the people’s
demands and all law and order was swept away. He then built a large
army to keep the people under his control. Later on he trained a
smaller number of people to be his eyes and ears, his spies, and he
gave them knowledge to build things for his pleasure. My father was
one of them.
Anubis also recruited energy
workers, telepaths, healers, psychics and many other types, but his
favourites were the singers for they had great power, more power
than all the other energy workers put together. He used them to
destroy the works of man. No one was safe from his scrutiny, people
were killed for even thinking unflattering thoughts about Anubis.
His eyes and ears were everywhere, seeing everything, hearing
everything. But this was not enough for Anubis, he wanted all the
worlds under his control, so he ordered his chosen few, my father
among them, to find a way to break the barriers that separated the
worlds and then he would be master of all.
They eventually made a small
portable device which allowed a few energy workers at a time to
transport to other worlds without using the portals, they reported
back to him of all the wonderful things they had witnessed in these
other worlds, but instead of making Anubis happy, it just made him
angrier, now he desperately wanted to see for himself. He tried to
use the device but his energy-field was too strong and only
succeeded in destroying the little machine. His wrath knew no
bounds, he became insane with power, he ordered his singers to
track down and kill all energy workers. He wanted not one left
alive because they had seen things he could not; this became known
as ‘The Purge’. They killed thousands and thousands of people in
the most horrible ways imaginable. Very few managed to escape the
Purge, but the ones that did, went underground and could never use
their powers again in case Anubis found them.
The singers then began to fear
for their own lives and turned on Anubis, their combined power was
mighty and almost destroyed Anubis, but in the end it was the
singers who were destroyed, again a few managed to escape but
nobody knows where they went. After this Anubis did not want to
take any chances and he asked my father to build a machine to stop
all energy workers from using their powers. My father tried but he
only succeeded in building a machine to dampen their energy but not
block it completely. Anubis took my father and tortured him, but
there was nothing my father could do, the machine Anubis wanted
could not be built. Fearing for the safety of his family my father
got a message to my mother to take me and hide. My father was never
seen again.’
Benitoff looked like an
alabaster statue, his rage barely contained. ‘And that, my friends
was his big mistake. I swore to avenge my father.’ His voice rising
with each word he spoke, until he shrieked, ‘I will find enough
singers and I will kill Anubis.’ He banged his fist down hard on
the table making all the crystal goblets jump in unison. ‘But,
please forgive me, I do not like angry outbursts.’ The others sat
in silence, it was clear to all of them the man was quite
insane.
‘I will continue.’
‘There’s more,’ thought
Max.
‘Anubis’ army went on the
rampage until nothing was left but smouldering ruins. Anubis
decided that if he couldn’t have all the worlds for himself then no
one would have them, so his plan was to catch all the Chosen and
have them put to death, thus stopping them from opening the final
portal. If more chosen came he would just keep having them killed,
but later he found out, if all the Chosen were killed together in
the same world no more would follow. Then all he had to do was wait
until another of his race came to rescue him, annihilating our
worlds in the process. My plan is to keep him from finding the
Chosen and then help them when the time is right.
They sat in silence for many
minutes trying to take in all that had been said, until Benitoff
eventually spoke.
‘It is very late my friends and
I’m sure you would like to rest before the morning and the
information about Daria arrives. I have had two rooms made up for
you, please follow me,’ he said rising from the table.
He led them out through the
throne room and down the corridor indicting two doors on the left.
‘I will leave you now, good night.’ With that he carried on down
the corridor, turned a corner and disappeared from sight.
Gilster opened the door to one
of the rooms and they all entered. It wasn’t as lavish as the rooms
they had been in but it was comfortable and warm, three four poster
beds were made up, looking very inviting and a number of large
divans and arm chairs were in front of a blazing, log fire.
‘I think it’s best if we all
sleep in the one room,’ said Max.
Elkeira made herself
comfortable on one of the divans. ‘I am just going to close my eyes
for a bit,’ she said yawning, ‘don’t let me fall asleep I want to
hear everything you talk about.’
She curled up, her head
cushioned on a large, feather pillow. In a few moments they heard
her steady breathing and knew she had fallen asleep. Tallon smile
and gently laid Havens cloak over her.
‘I cannot blame her,’ he said
kissing her head, ‘it is all so new and exciting, unfortunately,
she does not understand the danger.’
‘Well, what do we make of all
that,’ said Max throwing herself into an enormous stuffed arm chair
in front of the fire. ‘The man is obviously quite insane.’
Gilster moved to stand in front
of the blaze, warming his hands and his backside. ‘I agree, he’s
quite mad, but as for the rest, I’m not really sure, it was a lot
to take in, it’s obvious he hasn’t told us everything, but what are
the bits that are missing and how important to us are they. Haven,
what do you think?’
Haven was laying on one of the
huge beds. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll have to work it out
without me, I feel like my head is about to burst open like a ripe
pod, and before you ask, no, you can’t try any healing on me, I
don’t want anyone using any energy unless it’s a matter of life and
death. For some reason it’s very important to Benitoff that we use
our “gifts”. Now if you’ll excuse me, just let me die in
peace.’
Max wished she could help. ‘If
you need anything, just let me know,’ she said. Haven grunted.
‘I don’t understand,’ said
Tallon, who had been running everything over in his mind, ‘if he
wants to destroy Anubis why would he want the portal opened and
risk letting Anubis escape?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said
Gilster, ‘there’s a lot more going on here than we know.’
‘Bait,’ said Max.
‘Pardon,’ said Gilster, not
following her train of thought.
‘I bet he wants to use the
Chosen as bait, to lure Anubis out of hiding so he can get close
enough to kill him.’
‘That implies he has a way to
kill him,’ suggested Tallon .
‘Yes it does, doesn’t it,’ said
Gilster.
Max sat forward in her chair,
elbows on her knees. ‘Then what do you think our next move should
be?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Gilster
still standing in front of the fire, ‘we don’t seem to be in any
danger at the moment. Perhaps we should just wait and see what
Benitoff does next.’
Tallon, who had been wandering
around the room checking for anyone in hiding, now sat down on the
arm of Max’s chair. ‘Is that wise? I think we should be looking for
a way to escape; we need to find the next Chosen and your
friend.’
‘Well they’re definitely not
going to let us go voluntarily, we are, effectively, prisoners,’
said Gilster, ‘but if the opportunity to escape arises I think we
should take it.’
They all agreed. Max yawned. ‘I
think I might have a nap, we haven’t slept much since arriving in
this world and I feel totally worn out.’
She walked over to the bed
where Haven was sleeping; he was lying on his back, his forearm
resting lightly on his brow as if to ward away the pain. She looked
down at him seeing the pain etched heavily on his face; leaning
forward she softly kissed his lips causing him to stir in his
sleep. Climbing up onto the huge bed she threw her cloak over both
of them and curled in next to his body. She was asleep and snoring
softly as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Gilster turned to Tallon.
‘Would you like to sleep? I can stand watch for a while.’
‘No, you rest,’ said Tallon his
eyes on Max, ‘suddenly I don’t feel very tired and there is much I
need to think about.’
Gilster followed Tallon’s gaze.
‘Would you like to talk about her?’ he asked softly.
‘My pain is my own to bear, so
no, I would not, but thank you for your concern.’
‘As you wish,’ said Gilster,
‘wake me in a couple of hours and I will take watch.’ He climbed
into one of the other beds and was asleep in seconds.
Elkeira, sounding hurt by the accusation.
‘Maxine is right,’ said Tallon,
‘in fact, to be on the safe side, do not say anything at all.’
Elkeira pouted sullenly the way only a teenager can.
Max looked again at Haven, his
face had turned ashen. ‘You must be in a lot of pain,’ she said
gently brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, ‘would you like
me to try some healing?’
‘No,’ said Haven grimacing from
the reverberation of his own voice, ‘we must try and keep the
extent of our abilities from him, I’m getting a lot of deception
from him but I can’t get what it’s about.’
‘No doubt we will find out soon
enough,’ said Gilster, as the door began to open.
‘No one is to tell him Gilster
is a singer,’ hissed Haven, ‘that’s vital, something about singers
is very important to him.’ They all nodded.
‘All is ready,’ said Benitoff
proudly, ‘enjoy.’
Upon entering, their eyes were
met with a scene of splendour. The room was exquisitely decorated,
more so than the throne room. The ceiling was painted gold with
five, huge chandeliers hanging from golden chains, each covered
with hundreds of candles. The walls were dark wooden panelling
covered with paintings, each depicting a scene from everyday life;
from hunting and farming to smiling families dressed in their
finery. Two fires blazed in giant stone hearths, one to the left of
the table and one to the right, the mantelpieces were higher than
the top of Haven’s head. Under foot was a thick, plush carpet
deadening their footsteps as the wandered around looking at each
treasure. The dining table was easily twenty feet long and covered
with a cream, damask table cloth. Gold plates, gold cutlery and
crystal goblets were set upon it with military precision, drawing a
sigh of wonderment from the guests. But the biggest surprise was
the amount of food on giant golden platters covering the table.
‘Surely this can’t be all for us,’ thought Max.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ said
Benitoff beaming with pride at their stunned faces. ‘Please, be
seated.’
The chairs were ornately carved
with a different animal head atop each back-rest. Benitoff’s chair
at the head of the table was twice the size of everyone else’s but
not as big as his throne. Gilster sat to Benitoffs’ right, next to
Max and then Haven, Tallon sat to his left with Elkeira next to
him.
‘Help yourselves to whatever it
is you would like, there is plenty more where this came from.’
‘More!’ shrieked Elkeira in
shock, never had she seen this much grand food in one place before.
She began piling food on her plate, wanting to taste
everything.
Tallon laughed. ‘Not too much
little sister, you do not want to burst.’ Everyone began to fill
their plates. Haven just picked, his head throbbing in agony.
When the meal was over and
servants had removed all the plates they sat congenially around the
table, goblets of wine in hand. ‘Now,’ said Benitoff, ‘the time has
come for me to tell you a story, it is a story of greed, corruption
and murder, the story of my world. But, before I begin,’ he said
suddenly staring intently at Gilster, ‘you never did tell me what
your gift is. What is it that you do?’
‘Oh, nothing much sire,’ said
Gilster casually, ‘just a small bit of healing.’ He smiled at
Benitoff. Benitoff continued staring, the tension around the table
mounted, no one spoke. Then he smiled.
‘You must show me one day,’ he
said.
‘Of course sire, smiled
Gilster.’
He began to tell the
story.
‘Millennia ago, two beings
arrived, they were not of this world. Their names were Anubis and
Epona. Anubis had no interest in this world in the beginning and
left everything to Epona, she had a vision of a world filled with
light and beauty, a world where all people would be happy and all
their worries would be gone. They wouldn’t have to struggle to
survive and life would be wonderful and carefree. So she set about
building this world for her ‘children’ as she called them. But as
is always the way with humans, they weren’t content, they had
nothing to strive for, no challenges to face and so they became
bored, and with boredom came bitterness. Who was this outsider who
had come into their midst and decided how their world should be?
Surely it should be up to them what sort of world they wanted to
live in. Not everyone felt this way, but they were by far a very
small minority. Eventually a conclusion was reached by the masses,
she must be stopped, perhaps even removed. They sent a delegation
to meet with Anubis and asked if he could accomplish this for them,
if he did they would forever be his people and not Eponas. Epona
was heartbroken; her children had turned their backs on her. So she
fled to a distant part of the world to lick her wounds. The few
loyal children that remained to her built small shrines so they
could still speak to their ‘mother’, this they did in secret.
Anubis agreed to the people’s
demands and all law and order was swept away. He then built a large
army to keep the people under his control. Later on he trained a
smaller number of people to be his eyes and ears, his spies, and he
gave them knowledge to build things for his pleasure. My father was
one of them.
Anubis also recruited energy
workers, telepaths, healers, psychics and many other types, but his
favourites were the singers for they had great power, more power
than all the other energy workers put together. He used them to
destroy the works of man. No one was safe from his scrutiny, people
were killed for even thinking unflattering thoughts about Anubis.
His eyes and ears were everywhere, seeing everything, hearing
everything. But this was not enough for Anubis, he wanted all the
worlds under his control, so he ordered his chosen few, my father
among them, to find a way to break the barriers that separated the
worlds and then he would be master of all.
They eventually made a small
portable device which allowed a few energy workers at a time to
transport to other worlds without using the portals, they reported
back to him of all the wonderful things they had witnessed in these
other worlds, but instead of making Anubis happy, it just made him
angrier, now he desperately wanted to see for himself. He tried to
use the device but his energy-field was too strong and only
succeeded in destroying the little machine. His wrath knew no
bounds, he became insane with power, he ordered his singers to
track down and kill all energy workers. He wanted not one left
alive because they had seen things he could not; this became known
as ‘The Purge’. They killed thousands and thousands of people in
the most horrible ways imaginable. Very few managed to escape the
Purge, but the ones that did, went underground and could never use
their powers again in case Anubis found them.
The singers then began to fear
for their own lives and turned on Anubis, their combined power was
mighty and almost destroyed Anubis, but in the end it was the
singers who were destroyed, again a few managed to escape but
nobody knows where they went. After this Anubis did not want to
take any chances and he asked my father to build a machine to stop
all energy workers from using their powers. My father tried but he
only succeeded in building a machine to dampen their energy but not
block it completely. Anubis took my father and tortured him, but
there was nothing my father could do, the machine Anubis wanted
could not be built. Fearing for the safety of his family my father
got a message to my mother to take me and hide. My father was never
seen again.’
Benitoff looked like an
alabaster statue, his rage barely contained. ‘And that, my friends
was his big mistake. I swore to avenge my father.’ His voice rising
with each word he spoke, until he shrieked, ‘I will find enough
singers and I will kill Anubis.’ He banged his fist down hard on
the table making all the crystal goblets jump in unison. ‘But,
please forgive me, I do not like angry outbursts.’ The others sat
in silence, it was clear to all of them the man was quite
insane.
‘I will continue.’
‘There’s more,’ thought
Max.
‘Anubis’ army went on the
rampage until nothing was left but smouldering ruins. Anubis
decided that if he couldn’t have all the worlds for himself then no
one would have them, so his plan was to catch all the Chosen and
have them put to death, thus stopping them from opening the final
portal. If more chosen came he would just keep having them killed,
but later he found out, if all the Chosen were killed together in
the same world no more would follow. Then all he had to do was wait
until another of his race came to rescue him, annihilating our
worlds in the process. My plan is to keep him from finding the
Chosen and then help them when the time is right.
They sat in silence for many
minutes trying to take in all that had been said, until Benitoff
eventually spoke.
‘It is very late my friends and
I’m sure you would like to rest before the morning and the
information about Daria arrives. I have had two rooms made up for
you, please follow me,’ he said rising from the table.
He led them out through the
throne room and down the corridor indicting two doors on the left.
‘I will leave you now, good night.’ With that he carried on down
the corridor, turned a corner and disappeared from sight.
Gilster opened the door to one
of the rooms and they all entered. It wasn’t as lavish as the rooms
they had been in but it was comfortable and warm, three four poster
beds were made up, looking very inviting and a number of large
divans and arm chairs were in front of a blazing, log fire.
‘I think it’s best if we all
sleep in the one room,’ said Max.
Elkeira made herself
comfortable on one of the divans. ‘I am just going to close my eyes
for a bit,’ she said yawning, ‘don’t let me fall asleep I want to
hear everything you talk about.’
She curled up, her head
cushioned on a large, feather pillow. In a few moments they heard
her steady breathing and knew she had fallen asleep. Tallon smile
and gently laid Havens cloak over her.
‘I cannot blame her,’ he said
kissing her head, ‘it is all so new and exciting, unfortunately,
she does not understand the danger.’
‘Well, what do we make of all
that,’ said Max throwing herself into an enormous stuffed arm chair
in front of the fire. ‘The man is obviously quite insane.’
Gilster moved to stand in front
of the blaze, warming his hands and his backside. ‘I agree, he’s
quite mad, but as for the rest, I’m not really sure, it was a lot
to take in, it’s obvious he hasn’t told us everything, but what are
the bits that are missing and how important to us are they. Haven,
what do you think?’
Haven was laying on one of the
huge beds. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll have to work it out
without me, I feel like my head is about to burst open like a ripe
pod, and before you ask, no, you can’t try any healing on me, I
don’t want anyone using any energy unless it’s a matter of life and
death. For some reason it’s very important to Benitoff that we use
our “gifts”. Now if you’ll excuse me, just let me die in
peace.’
Max wished she could help. ‘If
you need anything, just let me know,’ she said. Haven grunted.
‘I don’t understand,’ said
Tallon, who had been running everything over in his mind, ‘if he
wants to destroy Anubis why would he want the portal opened and
risk letting Anubis escape?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said
Gilster, ‘there’s a lot more going on here than we know.’
‘Bait,’ said Max.
‘Pardon,’ said Gilster, not
following her train of thought.
‘I bet he wants to use the
Chosen as bait, to lure Anubis out of hiding so he can get close
enough to kill him.’
‘That implies he has a way to
kill him,’ suggested Tallon .
‘Yes it does, doesn’t it,’ said
Gilster.
Max sat forward in her chair,
elbows on her knees. ‘Then what do you think our next move should
be?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Gilster
still standing in front of the fire, ‘we don’t seem to be in any
danger at the moment. Perhaps we should just wait and see what
Benitoff does next.’
Tallon, who had been wandering
around the room checking for anyone in hiding, now sat down on the
arm of Max’s chair. ‘Is that wise? I think we should be looking for
a way to escape; we need to find the next Chosen and your
friend.’
‘Well they’re definitely not
going to let us go voluntarily, we are, effectively, prisoners,’
said Gilster, ‘but if the opportunity to escape arises I think we
should take it.’
They all agreed. Max yawned. ‘I
think I might have a nap, we haven’t slept much since arriving in
this world and I feel totally worn out.’
She walked over to the bed
where Haven was sleeping; he was lying on his back, his forearm
resting lightly on his brow as if to ward away the pain. She looked
down at him seeing the pain etched heavily on his face; leaning
forward she softly kissed his lips causing him to stir in his
sleep. Climbing up onto the huge bed she threw her cloak over both
of them and curled in next to his body. She was asleep and snoring
softly as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Gilster turned to Tallon.
‘Would you like to sleep? I can stand watch for a while.’
‘No, you rest,’ said Tallon his
eyes on Max, ‘suddenly I don’t feel very tired and there is much I
need to think about.’
Gilster followed Tallon’s gaze.
‘Would you like to talk about her?’ he asked softly.
‘My pain is my own to bear, so
no, I would not, but thank you for your concern.’
‘As you wish,’ said Gilster,
‘wake me in a couple of hours and I will take watch.’ He climbed
into one of the other beds and was asleep in seconds.
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