Chosen of the Gods

tears freeze on her cheeks as she turned and saw Beldyn.

He stood nearby, in the place where Gesseic had been. His hair had slipped free of its bonds and blew behind him like a banner. His eyes were twin blue suns, blazing in the night, and looking into them she felt her insides quiver and chtfrn. He was the one. He had to be. She could feel the truth of it, radiating from him like heat from a fire.

No, she told herself. No. Not yet.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He smiled at her but made no reply. Instead, he turned and walked away, farther up the slope to the peak’s sharp summit. His feet glided effortlessly across the snow as he went, but she struggled, sinking shin-deep with every step. By the time she caught up with him, he had turned around and was staring at the sky, his hands outstretched and open at his sides. Smiling, he shut his eyes, reached up into the night and pulled down a star.

Ilista gasped, her mind reeling. It was impossible. High as they were, the stars were much higher still, certainly too far to touch. Yet she saw it, his fingers pinching shut around one of the countless glittering motes, then plucking it down, tiny as a pebble and bright as its brothers above. He held it before his eye, studying it as a gemcutter might study a diamond, then smiled and clenched it in his fist. Light flared briefly between his fingers and was gone-as was the star when he opened his hand once more.

His eyes seemed to shine even brighter than before as he studied her. He flung his hands upward and brought down the heavens.

The stars moved so slowly at first that Ilista didn’t notice it until she saw the emptiness at the sky’s rim and realized they were drawing away from the horizon. They sped up as she watched, now flowing like a river, now darting like meteors, now so fast they made white streaks against the dark. Bit by bit, the constellations came apart. The sky over Beldyn grew brighter and brighter still, until it seemed a second sun shone where all the stars gathered. His face aglow with bliss, he lowered his arms.

The pool of light fell and washed over him, each star flaring bright when it touched him, then winking out. The stars didn’t simply disappear, however, but added their light to his own, making him shine brighter with every heartbeat- first his eyes, then the rest of him, until starglow swathed him like a mantle, obscuring him from view. By the time the last stars had fallen, the glare was so bright that Dista had to turn away.

She heard the whisper of his footsteps, felt him draw near, but she didn’t look, tears crawling down her cheeks as she stared away into the starless night. He was the man she had dreamed of, the figure of light the god had revealed to her.

“Do you still doubt, Efisa?” he asked.

She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

“Then take my hand.”

He held it open before her, each finger a bright comet’s tail. For a moment she balked, afraid his touch might burn her to ashes, but the light gave no heat. Swallowing, she raised her hand, reaching out and touching his luminous flesh.

Rapture flooded her at his touch. Her back arched… her eyes pinched shut… the warmth of blood flooded her mouth. Oh Paladine, she thought, so this is how purity feels… please, it’s too bright… it hurts…

As abruptly as she’d left it, she was back in the chapel, her face damp with tears, her robes with sweat. With a gasp she let go, and her medallion fell from her grasp to clatter on the floor. Beldyn was looking at her, no longer cloaked in light but his eyes still shining.

For a moment, the words of the rite eluded her. When she spoke them at last, her voice quavered and nearly broke. “Ubatsud, usas farno,” she bade, tears rolling down her face, “e bidud Paladas gonam fas.”

Rise, child of the god, and know thou art Paladine’s chosen.

Beldyn stood, and Ilista bent forward, ritually kissing his cheeks. As she did, two words circled in her mind. Around and around they went, a bright certainty that drove away her doubt and despair:

The Lightbringer… the Lightbringer… the Lightbringer!

The waterfall was even more beautiful in Solinari’s glow. The silver moon rode high, and the mist of the torrent caught and trapped its light, becoming a vast, brilliant serpent that sparkled as it writhed on the wind. The Majereans had chosen rightly when they made their monastery plain. Beside the shining mist, even the Great Temple itself would have seemed small.

Ilista was accustomed to living amid power and splendor in her place at the Kingpriest’s side, but today she had been humbled. She remembered how Beldyn’s mind had felt as she delved into it, and she shuddered at having seen something so bright, as if her own thoughts might have polluted its existence.

She had been standing alone on the abbey’s south wall since the Apanfo concluded, staring at the mist and remembering the ecstasy that had flooded her at the touch of the glowing hand. Now, somehow, she heard the scuff of sandals on stone above the waterfall’s bellow. She turned, already knowing it was Beldyn. He signed the triangle as he came near, and she bowed her head, spreading her hands contritely.

“Please, Efisa” he said. “I am but a simple monk.”

She looked up, shaking her head. “You’re more than that.”

“Perhaps.”

Ilista swallowed, gathering her thoughts. “How long have-have you known?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, gazing out at the shimmering mist. “I remember little of my childhood and nothing of my parents. I was an orphan in Xak Tsaroth when I met Brother Voss.”

“Voss? The monk you sent for me today?”

Beldyn nodded. “Most of the monks here were once clerics in the city. Voss sometimes went among the poor, giving them what aid he could, and one day he saw me lay hands upon a woman dying of the gray fever and heal her sickness.

“Yes,” he said as Dista’s eyes widened, “the god’s power was in me even then. Voss brought me back to the temple of Paladine and told the patriarch what he had witnessed. That was a mistake-the patriarch called it blasphemy to think an untrained child could perform such miracles when ordained priests could not.” He shook his head. “There are many in the church who would not believe in my powers.”

Dista bit her lip, thinking of other hierarchs who would react like this patriarch-perhaps even Kurnos himself. “What happened then?”

“Voss, may Paladine bless him, wasn’t so easily daunted. Instead he took me in and taught me the church’s ways in secret.” Beldyn’s eyes danced with memory. “He even consecrated me as an acolyte. When the patriarch found out, he nearly ordered us both stoned as heretics. Too many people loved Voss, though, so he banished us instead. Voss asked his brethren to come with us.” He nodded down into the courtyard, where the monks were emerging from the refectory, their supper done. “As you see, a few listened.”

“We traveled deeper into the mountains,” he went on, “and found this place. The Majereans were long gone, so we restored it and made it our home. We’ve lived here ever since… six years now.”

“Now you’re the master,” Dista said.

He nodded. “A year and a half ago, Voss named me a full Revered Son and appointed me his successor. The others accepted it-they have long known and trusted me. I became head of the abbey, and since then I have been waiting.”

“Waiting?” Ilista’s brows knitted. “What for?”

“For you, Efisa.” His eyes were silver pools in the misty light. “The night before I became master, I too had a dream. In it, a woman rode out of the north, pursued by beasts on shadowy wings. She said to me, Pilofiram fas-you are the Lightbringer-and then I woke. I told Voss, and he said it was a vision from the god. One day I would meet the woman, and my life would change forever.

“Ten days ago I had the dream again, and I knew it must be time. I sent one of my monks to Xak Khalan, with a message- which, of course, you found. A few days later, when I saw the wyverns had taken wing in the storm, I knew someone had roused them, so I went to help you. I only wish I had been quicker, so others might have lived.”