The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (3 page)

Otom hadn't always been a Monk.

His body still rippled with muscles he had
built before his time at the Monastery. He had maintained his form,
often losing sleep and exercising late into the night to do so. Old
habits died hard and Otom was stubborn. But he hadn't fought,
really fought, in ages.

Otom's attacker looked more bird-like than
anything else, but it had no wings. It was about five feet tall and
had some kind of a beak-like protrusion, but it had teeth where a
bird would not. Its beak and claws were wet with red blood and its
tongue, a disgusting purple thing, lolled out of the side of its
mouth like a dog who had finished running too hard. The creature
skidded, claws scrabbling awkwardly on the stone floor, giving Otom
more time.

Otom gathered Fire and although he couldn't
attach it directly to the creature (it was impossible to attach
Fire to another living thing, even an abomination like this), he
let it sit hidden in his fists, burning there. A Monk could not be
physically burned by their own Fire, but it still felt horrible,
like gripping hot coals.

Otom reached out with yet
another branch of his power. A wave of his Detection radiated
outward. He could feel the presence of other beings this way. He
couldn't feel this creature, though. It wasn't registering the same
way human's did.
What trickery is
this?
He did feel one other living thing
behind him. Likely another Monk, wounded and clinging to
life.

The creature reached Otom, and it struck out
with a thin limb that looked disproportionately long for its body.
It whizzed through the air, but Otom raised a forearm to block its
path. Another strike came, this time a kick, and Otom caught the
bird's ankle with his own, using the creature's momentum to pull it
off balance. Then he opened his hand, revealed his Fire, and
slammed his palm into the creature's stomach. He heard a satisfying
crunch and sizzle followed by a surprised shriek as the thing
reeled backwards.

Otom leaped forward, powerful legs closing
the distance quickly. This time the creature stabbed forward with
its beak, all the while gasping for breath. Otom saw the attack
coming and, while turning just enough to avoid it, delivered a
quick chop to the thing's neck. The creature reeled backwards
again.

Otom didn't feel fear, only exhilaration. It
felt good to be who he had been all those years ago, if only
briefly. Friends of his lay dead on the ground here, but Otom felt
alive. Had this been in God's plan? No, probably not. God wouldn't
send a creature like this. Was it some sort of Foglin? Otom
remembered whispers about Foglins, but he had never been sure he
had actually seen one.

The creature was slowing and Otom didn't
have a hard time knocking it to the ground. He delivered a powerful
blow to its head with both palms, cracking its skull and putting it
down for good. He thought he heard it mutter a word near the end,
but found it difficult to believe that the thing had been capable
of human speech.

He kept his Detection up but let his Fire
fade. He only felt that one presence, so he headed towards it to
see if it was someone he could save.

T
he
Monk he found was propped up against one of the prayer benches. A
deep wound on his neck was turning his brown robe crimson. Otom
began to tear a piece of his own robe off to try and form some sort
of bandage. He knew he at least had to stop the bleeding somehow.
The fabric ripped loudly in the quiet space. He'd seen fighters
with wounds like this. They usually didn't live.

“No need to bandage me,” the injured Monk's
voice grated in a whisper.

He's talking!

Otom started to open his
mouth but the injured Monk held up his hand. “Don't speak,” he
said. “Don't break your Vow as I am. I have been quiet for so long
I just . . . I just wanted to speak before I died.” He coughed. “I
have lived with you for ten years and I . . . I don't even know
your name. Names,” he scoffed. “They are of no consequence, but
mine was Umden. Umden.” Tears ran down his face. “Is it all
worth
it, Monk?” he asked.
“God has betrayed us here. He has forgotten us. After all we have
tried to do.”

Otom shook his head and
tried to communicate what he was feeling. He could not. Without
words he was powerless in this situation. He had listened to God
and communed with Him here. God was working to absolve him of his
sins and now . . . now Otom wasn't sure what to think.
Am I being tested?
The
Book spoke of trials. Things sent to test just
one
person. Otom could be that
person.

Or I could just be a normal man caught in
horrifying circumstances.

“The pattern,” the wounded Monk said,
gesturing. “I can see it from here.”

Otom looked around the chapel. The creature
had killed so many men, but each one had died in a specific spot.
Otom stood up to take a better look. He squinted his eyes. He was
in the middle of twenty-nine corpses that littered the ground
around him. If he connected them in his mind with lines . . .

A fish.

It was a strong symbol, and one the Monks
held dear. Salmon, specifically. Otom hadn't understood it until he
had read about it in texts, but salmon were a powerful symbol in
the Kilgane Monastery. Many salmon would sacrifice their lives
attempting to swim upstream to continue their life-cycle, dying by
the thousands to hungry bears and fishermen.

Otom's mind raced to try and comprehend what
this meant. How had that creature known to slay these people in
such a pattern and how exactly had it accomplished such a thing?
There was a more powerful force at work here, and the doubt in God
that Otom had felt only moments ago was washed away.

I'm a Chosen,
Otom thought. The fact hit him harder than it
should have.

“Your arm,” the dying Monk said, his eyes
widening as more blood pumped down his neck. He pointed at Otom's
bare arm.

Otom looked down to see orange and brown
glows just below the skin of his right forearm. The colors slowly
crawled to the surface. The glows formed the outline of a fish: a
salmon. It was about two fingers long and was bright enough now
that it hurt to look directly at it.

“A Chosen in our own Monastery. You must
travel to the Temple of Sin'ra!” The injured monk was yelling now,
voice free from its shackles. “They say that the truly devout
scribe the word of God there. Something about that place . . .
there are texts that say it's a hub . . . a nexus of power . . .
You must go there if you are Chosen! You mustn't let anyone know!
It's dangerous to let people know! I have read that part of The
Book over and over and over through the years! It is clear! I knew
when you came here, when the Chaplain discovered your powers,
trained you . . . you-” He was unable to finish as he died.

Otom stood in a room of thirty dead Monks
and one dead creature. How the monster had gotten there, what
exactly it was, and what it wanted were questions he would have to
get the answers to another day. Right now he had to travel south
for the first time in a long time. He had been Chosen by God. There
was no denying that.

The glowing symbol on his arm now marked him
as surely as the scars on his back did. He belonged to God.

Maybe I always have.

H
is
Detection was still silent, but Otom was wary. His old fighter
instincts came rushing back to him.
There
are more beasts here somewhere. I know it.

A moment later he thought he
heard them scrabbling on the stones just outside. His stomach
turned. He slowly backed away from the dead Monk.
Umden. His name was Umden.

Otom turned towards the
door, once again summoning Fire into his palms. If he was going to
take this journey to the Temple of Sin'ra there were only a few
things he would need, but he would have to get back to his room to
get them.
Please let me be
wrong
.
Please let
those noises be the wind, the ice.
He
expanded his Detection radius, pushing it to its limits, feeling
himself sweat with power. It encompassed the whole Monastery,
draining his magical reserves at a frightening rate. There was not
one Monk left alive save himself.

The scrabbling outside was getting
louder.

Otom burst through the door without
bothering to pull up his robe. Cold air blasted him, making his
hair stand on end. Five more creatures waited for him out there,
and they were horrific. They all had shapes that vaguely resembled
animals, but every single one was grotesquely formed. One creature
pointed at him and squawked something. Apparently it meant 'attack'
if it meant anything at all, for the others rushed towards Otom,
snow flying from the ground in their wake.

Otom dropped his Detection and washed
himself with Calm, trying to settle his nerves. A stone walkway ran
around the perimeter of the cloister, with the courtyard in the
middle. The door to the dormitory was on the opposite side. Otom
had two choices: go around the perimeter or go right through the
center of the creature mob.

So he turned to his left and threw his Fire
down to the right, creating flames that stuck to the stone and
burned. He increased their intensity quickly until the Fires were
licking the roof above him, then he began to run, making sure Fire
streamed from his fist to the floor. The result was a blazing wall
on his flank. Sweat poured off of him as he ran.

He could hear the creatures through the roar
of the Fire, claws scratching and throats screeching. They rushed
to cut him off, trying to gain a more advantageous angle of attack.
Otom was simply faster. They scrambled to get to him, passing
willingly through the Fire. Two of the hairier creatures were
charred instantly and died screaming, but the other three, covered
in carapace instead of fur, found their way through and gave chase.
Otom started to set Fire down behind him, but the awkward motion
slowed him down and the monsters were gaining.

The dormitory door was in sight and Otom
surged towards it, palms and legs burning. He wrenched the door
open and hurled himself inside, leaving the inferno he had created
behind him. He raced into his room and flung open his wooden
cabinet, hands digging shakily at the bottom panel. It was a secret
compartment he had built himself. It contained only one thing.

The branch of the Dryad Tree was still
exactly where he had left it. It was about as long as his arm but
it was light, the wood incredibly strong. It still had red leaves
clinging to it, even after all these years. He felt a faint power
from it as he picked it up and it almost seemed to respond to the
glowing fish on his forearm. Magic would react with magic, he
knew.

The branch was his deepest sorrows
incarnate, and when he held it he felt sadness wash over him. For a
moment the emotion eclipsed everything: panic, fear,
excitement.

He pulled up his robe, grabbed his whip and
his pack off the wall, and pounded his way out of the Monastery.
Hopefully the creatures had all died in the cloister inferno.

Otom wouldn't even be able to warn the folk
of Kilgane Town, for The Book was strict on the behaviors of a
Chosen. He had to stay safe, stay anonymous until he reached
Sin'ra. From there he would find out what to do next.

He looked down at his glowing forearm and
covered it with his robe.

Maybe he was blessed.

But he sure didn't feel like it.

O
tom
knew that as he traveled to the Temple of Sin'ra he would relive
his past no matter how hard he tried to keep it out. Thirteen
years. He didn't forget. He had only buried the thoughts. He would
have to pass through Kilgaan. That place would dredge up memories
from him like bodies from a lake.

He would also have to travel past Pakken,
the place where he had grown up. He would have to be reminded of
his parents.

And he had no doubt that
thoughts of
her
would come rushing back to his head.

He had been fooling himself for a long time,
tricking himself into thinking that he could run from the past.

No.

He could never forget
her
. Could never forget
Allura Finny no matter how hard he tried.

And he could never forget how thoroughly he
had failed her.

C
leric Domma walked down the dimly lit hallway, her slippered
feet making no noise. She had been to this hospital many times in
the past, and she was always sad to see that not much ever changed.
It was cold and shabbily build, the structure cracking and falling
apart. The city of Haroma could certainly afford better than this,
but the money always seemed to go to other places.
There are always more exciting ways for the rich
to spend their gains.
She chastised herself
for thinking that way, but couldn't help it when she saw this
place.

Domma pulled her hood lower so that it fell
halfway over her eyes, leaving just the lower half of her face
visible. She had found that the art of the reveal was the most
important part of helping unwilling patients.

Her robe was blue with golden borders and
was the standard garb of a Sunburst Cleric. Underneath it she wore
a simple shift and, under that, bandages that wrapped her from
stomach to neck. Without her robe on she would have looked somewhat
like a hospital patient herself. The bandages weren't because she
was injured, though; they were part of the trappings of her
Order.