To Be Chosen (13 page)

“Rise, Serin Gell, and hear,” the baritone voice of
Tarin Conn filled the chamber.

Serin sprang to his feet and met a stare that would terrify a yeti and make a stone seem soft. Sweat flowed over his brow yet he dared not move, not even to wipe his face. “I await your command, Great Master.”

Tarin Conn leaned forward, resting his chin on his right fist, with out blinking or giving any sign of how this meeting was going to end, good or bad. “The Serpent Guild needs a new Maestro. Balen’s arrogance caused him to be short sighted and has cost him his life. His repertoire, knowledge, and experience were vastly greater than Daniel’s and he could have subdued the novice Accomplished a thousand different ways. Instead, he chooses the most risky of all challenges, a point blank battle of endurance. Part of his failure lay in his leaving important matters in the hands of lesser talents. Had he shielded Daniel with my baton the moment the spell caster entered the audience chamber, the young man would be safely under his control, my guild would not be without a Maestro, and its members would not be breaking into small factions.”

There was acid in the master’s voice while speaking the last sentence but Serin did not detect that the anger was directed at him, which might be a good sign. That the Supreme Maestro was planning to choose a new Maestro came as no surprise, and as for the rest, he was more than right to place the blame on Balen Tamm. Serin almost felt like smiling, and would if he could be sure how th
is visitation was going to end.

“You are to escape,”
Tarin Conn commanded him as if doing so would take no extraordinary effort.

Serin opened his mouth to explain about the shield, cell keeper, and why the command could not be obeyed, at least not any time soon. He wanted with all his heart to follow this order, especially when it was in line with his own welfare.

Tarin Conn did not give time for a reply. “Vance Cummin has been ordered to send an extraction team. It will be led by a member who is familiar with the holding cells, having searched them once long ago with a now dead member of my guild.”

This was the answer to his dreams. “Thank you, Great Master,” he said with barely contained excitement. “Once free I will hunt down Daniel Benhannon and make him pay for the damage he has done to your glorious guild.”

“No!” Tarin Conn shouted, with brow furrowed and eyes burning in anger. “Stay away from Daniel Benhannon. I have use for him in the future. Even so, he is paying the price for disregarding my warnings and has been Silenced by the Grand Maestro.”

Serin Gell smiled at the thought of his enemy being Silenced. Daniel Benhannon may as well have no lightning bolts at all. Oh this was special and Serin truly wished he could have seen the look on the Ducaunan’s face when Efferin Tames betrayed him. The moment of joy passed and Serin realized there had to be a greater purpose, a stronger reason for the Supreme Maestro to order an extraction from Aakadon, the most secure city in the world, and one filled with tens of thousands of enemy Accomplisheds. “Great Master, what would you have me do?”

Tarin Conn’s lips slanted up into a half smile. “I am about to decide which member of the guild is to be the next Maestro, Vance Cummin or you,”

Serin’s jaw seemed to have come unhinged. He closed his mouth and prostrated himself on the floor. “Great Master, I am yours to command and serve in whatever capacity you ch
oose,” he replied breathlessly.

To be the next Maestro, the thought was intoxicating and made his head spin. Vance was competent and could be trouble but Serin knew who would win this contest.

“Once you are freed,” Tarin Conn continued as if uninterrupted. “Begin reorganizing your powerbase within the guild. Yetis, sasquatches, and Condemneds are running loose. Balen never tied the Da Capos of the spell to a crescendo, so they are out of control. The only ones still under control are those he ordered to obey particular Accomplisheds. You already know the spell to control the yetis, the same works on the sasquatches. I will teach you the spell, Condemnation, so you can bring any existing Condemneds under your control and create new ones as well. Vance Cummin is doing an excellent job of pulling the guild back together and well ahead in expanding his powerbase, even absorbing some of yours. Remember, whichever one of you garners the most members, and builds the strongest organization, will be the next maestro and the loser will be ordered to submit. Do not seek to Condemn or kill Vance Cummin in this contest. He has been given the same orders concerning you so neither of you should test my resolve on this matter. The guild needs both of its Three-bolt Accomplisheds.”

“Your will be done, Great Master,” Serin replied at once.

This was far better than Serin dared hope for. Just when all seemed lost and he would be spending what was left of his life in a cell beneath the Eagle Guild, the Supreme Maestro breathes new life and purpose into him.

“Listen and I will teach you the spell, Condemnation. Ten heart beats of concentration freezes the subject in place and gives you complete control over the subject’s will, twenty heart beats causes every hair to fall from the subject’s body, thirty beats and beyond allows you to rearrange the subject’s body into any form you please, while keeping him or her alive through the entire process. The transformation is excruciating and I believe you will enjoy the casting as much as Balen ever did. Vance seldom goes beyond forty heart beats of concentration, not out of pity, for he has none, he just seems to prefer the most efficient approach,”
Tarin Conn instructed.

A trumpet appeared in the hands of the Supreme Maestro and he played the Melody, implanting the spell directly into Serin’s subconscious, and firmly into his repertoire. This was an entirely new technique in teaching and Serin was impressed and extremely pleased that the great master would so honor him. He would fill the world with Condemneds; only individuals who proved loyal to him would be spared. He chuckled at the thought of Condemning the
Cenkataaran guarding his cell.

Tarin
Conn vanished as quickly as he had come. Serin woke, stretched, and sat up expectantly. The urgency with which the Supreme Maestro had spoken caused him to believe the extraction would be eminent.

The snap-bang of displaced air startled Serin even though he had been expecting it. The sound came from several cells away. Screams filled the night, at least Serin thought it was night, regardless, day or night; his rescuers were right outside the door, which was now glowing silver-blue. He moved to the left corner and ducked under the protruding shelf just as the door burst apart, iron shards flying everywhere
. In walked a One-bolt Accomplished of Ducaunan birth, brown hair cut short, dark eyes, and pale in the face. The man was six and three quarters cubits in height, one of the tallest men Serin had ever seen, and powerfully built. He had one golden lightning bolt on his black silk cloak and a diamond tipped silver baton in his hand.

“I’m Jordan Simms. Vance Cummin has sent me to extract you,” he shouted while fire balls and flashes of potential flew back and forth in the corridor behind him.

Seven more One-bolt Accomplisheds of the Serpent Guild entered the cell and encircled Serin. Jordan lifted his baton and the silvery-blue glow of his potential increased. Each member of the team began to focus their life force energy at the team leader, performing in concert with him. Just before they reached the climax of the spell, all condemnation broke loose, members of the Eagle Guild, led by Jeremiah Lassiter, stormed into the cell, casting spells, and launching their deadly, Beak Strikes, beams of light, shaped like an eagle’s beak, lacerating anyone unfortunate enough to be struck. None of the beams reached Serin, but four members of the extraction team died right in front of him before the blackness of in between here and there caused him to lose all sensory perception.

They arrived in a forest glade, which was all Serin could discern about his location. He was the only one standing, every member of the now reduced extraction team was on the ground, two of which were severely dehydrated from the demands of the teleportation spell, and two were dried out husks. Once completed, the teleportation Melody draws the necessary potential to carry out the spell, a
nd with four persons ripped from the casting, the energy came from the remaining participants of the concert. Four One-bolts using class-one level-one batons have the equivalent of eight bolts of potential, more  than enough to complete the spell, but it drained the life forces out of half of them in the process. Serin had not been part of the concert and therefore felt no ill affects, not so Jordan and the plump female Aakacarn on the ground near him.

The female reached into the folds of her cloak, withdrew a water flask, and drank thirstily, gulping down the contents, and then shutting her eyes wearily. She was a comely girl with light brown hair and green eyes, like an illegitimate cross betwee
n a Ducuanan and a Battencayan.

Jordan
emptied two water flasks down his gullet before getting to his feet. “We are in Ducaun, just outside the village of Graywood, about twenty-five spans North-northeast of Aakadon,” he stated, as if that was enough explanation.

“I know you have been to Serpent North, why did you not take us there? For that matter, there are many places far better than a remote village in the middle of a pine forest, especially one so close to the home
of our enemies,” Serin replied.

“The Maestro is dead, Vance Cummin is in command at Serpent North, everyone in the guild is swarming to him, they follow his orders and so do I,”
Jordan said without a trace of chagrin.

Serin was about to administer chastisement when several things occurred to him; his potential was still shielded, dropping him here out of the way was all Vance’s doing, and
he needed this man’s help. “Well done, you have completed your assignment. Are there any other orders you have concerning me?”

Jordan
glanced at the female Aakacarn. “Olivia, I told you we were nearly as strong as any Two-bolt, and this proves it.”

“And so it does,” she replied while getting to her feet and wiping her hands.

“Congratulations on the growth of your potentials,” Serin told them, bringing their attention back to where it belonged; on him.

“My orders were to extract you from the Eagle Guild, bring you to Graywood, and nothing more. We don’t have enough potential to cast, Teleportation, so wherever we go from here, we go on foot,”
Jordan finally got around to answering.

Serin knew exactly where to go, what to do, and how to go about building his organization while reestablishing his old ties. “We must go to Lamont, my nest is there and so are my crescendos, one of which may allow me
to break this shield on my potential.”

“I bow to your experience,”
Jordan said and actually bent from the waist, matching the deed to his words.

Olivia bowed her head, slightly. “I look to your guidance,” she said, not in full commitment, but it would do.

Serin bent over the mummified remains of the nearest Accomplished, took the slender golden baton from his stiffened fingers, and then summoned potential for, Ball Of Flame, and focused on the two bodies. Nothing happened. The shield was still in place. He had not truly believed a level one crescendo would bolster his potential enough to break free, but it was worth the try. He removed the black cloak from the body on the left, guessing that it would fit him best, and then slipped the silk on over the white robe.

“To Lamont,” he told th
e newest members of his team.

Daniel stood on the north bank of Lake Benhannon. It was an imperfect oval half a span wide, east to west, three quarters of a span north to south, and fed by a fresh water spring deep beneath its surface. He was standing in ankle length blades of green grass and watching mallards with glossy green heads and mergansers with their slim bodies and reddish bills, fish, turtles, and assorted bugs engaged in the cycle of life. The lake never had a name, according to the farmers who worked the land to the east, north, and west. Silvia proclaimed it. “Lake Benhannon,” and repeated it at each of the fourteen farms they had visited, and the name stuck. The residents seemed pleased to meet him. They were humble and pragmatic people and took the transition from farming the lands of the Queen to that of a Royal Knight of the Realm fairly well, especially after he told them he was lowering the share owed to his estate from two tenths of their produce to one.

His four storied manor house with a lookout tower rising thirty cubits from the roof was two spans behind him. The width and depth of the central part of the house was greater than that of the Polkat Inn back in Bashierwood, with one story wings twenty strides wide, stretching out north, east, and west another thirty strides. The manicured grounds covered a square span area and were surrounded by a granite wall ten cubits high and two thick. Fruit trees, squared off hedges, and beds of flowers decorated the lawn. The stables were on the west side of the estate and could probably hold nearly a thousand horses, but were now home to only three with two occasional visitors. The royal guardsmen were gone, taking along with them
the household staff and grooms.

Silvia and David were off among the Reshashinni, who finally arrived, and probably enjoying the Great Carnival. They assured him they would be back in time to escort him to Ducanton. Jared was at the manor, in his west wing office, preparing lists of things to be done, and whatever was involved in acquiring a new staff to take care of the huge house and grounds. Daniel would do the work himself if he was not engaged in learning the duties and responsibilities of being a Royal Knight of the Realm. The law books arrived yesterday and he only had four more days to read through them before his presence was required back at the capital. He was wearing beige wool pants, a brown belt with the gold buckle he made, and a light green cotton under shirt with his new family crest embroidered on the upper left side of his chest. The falcon in flight with a golden lightning bolt clutched in its talons, in a sky of blue, was impressive. So far as he knew, the Benhannon family never had a crest, but they did now and he was more than satisfied with what the Queen had designed for him. He was sure his parents and relatives would be
pleased.