Chosen of the Gods

evening’s glow-using the white pieces now, as was his right. First Daughter Balthera hardly knew the rules. Quarath professed not to care for the game. Lord Holger-a fair player, who had beaten him in the past- was in the field, marching on Govinna even now. And so on.

“Yes,” he said.

“Excellent,” Fistandantilus declared, and sat at the table, before the dark pieces. “Let us play, then, while we talk.”

The wizard made a gesture, and Kurnos felt a rushing, as if a gale had sprung up to blow expressly in his face. With a dizzying lurch, he was sitting at the table, before the white pieces. He shuddered, staring at the dark- robed form across from him. The mage had used sorcery on him! Fistandantilus met his shocked gaze, then shrugged, letting out a rasping laugh, and gestured at the table.

“The forces of light are yours, Holiness. Make your first move.”

Kurnos gaped down at the pieces arrayed before him. All he knew of strategy, all the books he had read, fled from his mind. He forced himself to take a deep breath. With a glance up at Fistandantilus, he leaned forward and whispered to footsoldier. The tiny soldier bowed and strode forward, his mail rattling. His spear trembled in his hands as he eyed the dark form looming before him.

The dark mage snorted, his hand gesturing slightly, and one of his own pawns came to life and marched ahead to thwart Kurnos’s.

The Kingpriest stared at the board. Fistandantilus’s man had moved where he wanted it to go without the slightest word having been spoken. He knew the mage had done it to intimidate him, and it did. He steepled his fingers, trying to think of a gambit.

“You used the ring again,” the sorcerer said, nodding at the emerald glittering on his finger.

Kurnos scowled, snatching his hands back. Rather than reply, he murmured to one of his champions, and the little Knight galloped diagonally across the board.

“I did,” he admitted, when the piece came to a halt. “I sent the demon to slay my enemies, as you suggested. She failed.”

He wasn’t sure what response he expected Fistandantilus to make, but the wizard’s shrug disappointed him all the same. “Did she?” he asked, advancing a second Footsoldier. “How?”

“That’s why I asked you here,” Kurnos replied. He spoke to one of his Wyrms, which then slithered through the ranks of his men, moving to threaten the wizard’s ranks. “I commanded her to go to Govinna, to kill Lady Ilista and this Brother Beldyn. Last Moonsday, when I woke, she was back inside the gem.”

Fistandantilus brought forward his Guardian. “I should think that is a good sign,” he said.

“So did I,” Kurnos snapped, glowering at the pieces. The dark mage’s moves didn’t seem to have any pattern or strategy, and that worried him. He was being toyed with. He advanced another Footsoldier to protect the Wyrm. “But I’ve heard rumors since that Beldyn is still alive, and… there’s something wrong with Sathira.”

That caught the wizard’s attention. “Interesting,” he said after a long moment, raising his gaze from the board. He retreated his Guardian two spaces-again, with no aim Kurnos could see-then clenched his age-spotted hand into a fist. “Let me see.”

Kurnos felt a sudden chill on his hand. He looked to the ring, then caught his breath. It was gone from his finger. Glancing across the table, he saw Fistandantilus’s fingers uncurl to reveal the emerald, glinting in his palm. The wizard raised the gem, peering into it, then waved his other hand over it, his fingertips weaving the air.

“Apala ngartash” he murmured. “Urshai maivak toboruk!”

There was a sound like cloth tearing, and green light flared from the gem, billowing over the table like mist. The fog flowed around them, then, slowly, shapes appeared, pale and hazy, like ghosts. They stood in a well- appointed study, the details of which were vague. Kurnos recognized some of the figures-Durinen was sitting at a desk, and Lady Dista was there as well-but the bearish warrior with them was unfamiliar, as was the fourth person. He knew, though, as soon as he saw the young man, with his white robes and long hair, that it was the Iightbringer.

He caught his breath. “What is this?”

“What Sathira saw, just before she attacked,” Fistandantilus replied. “Now, watch.”

The wizard made a flicking gesture with his fingertips, and the spectacle began. Kurnos watched, rapt, as the shadows took on the demon’s familiar form, seizing Durinen and killing him, then two fighters running into the room, then the bearish warrior as well. In moments, all four were dead, and the demon was stalking the two priests.

He saw Ilista reach for her medallion, saw the resolve in her face, saw the demon lunge, its claws ripping into her, as she shielded herself with the medallion and gave a shout. A light flashed and the vision ended, the green glow vanishing like fog burned away by the sun. The ring went dark.

Kurnos sat back in his chair, speechless. So Ilista was dead. He would never forget the horrible sight, and he knew that, tomorrow night, Symeon would have company in his nightmares. Beldyn, who mattered most, was still alive. The King-priest wrung his hands, as Fistandantilus clenched his fingers about the emerald once more. With another twinge, the ring reappeared on his finger. Its grip felt even tighter than before.

“There is your answer,” the wizard said. “The First Daughter hurt Sarhira badly. She cannot leave the ring again until she recovers. A week, perhaps more. You may call upon her again then. I advise you do so, and do not hesitate this time.” Pushing back, Fistandantilus rose from the table and began to turn away.

Ridiculously, after all the mage had told him, Kurnos’s first thought was about their unfinished game. The archmage paused, glancing over his shoulder.

“Oh… yes,” the sorcerer said. “It is my turn.”

With that, he raised his finger, making a sharp gesture. As one, his pieces surged forward, swarming across the table and laying into the Kingpriest’s men with sword and fang. Screams rang out across the balcony as the game pieces perished, cut to shreds by the sudden onslaught. In seconds, and against all the game’s rules, his men had all perished.

“Rigo iebid,” Fistandantilus said as Kurnos gaped at the carnage.

The realm is fallen.

He was gone, melting into the shadows, leaving the sound of mocking laughter in his wake.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It snowed the eve of Lady Ilista’s funeral. It was the first of the season, blowing in on bitter winds off the Khalkists to the west. A light dusting that sparkled the air around the street lamps and filled the cracks between the cobblestones, it was the sort of snow that would be gone by midday, only a herald of the coming winter.

The snow kept folk inside, save for the watchmen on the city’s high walls, who shivered as they huddled around smoldering braziers, and so the weather helped prevent the riots that might have transpired in the wake of the slaughter in the Patriarch’s tower. There was worse on the way, fiercer storms that would howl down from the mountains and bury Taol’s roads, as had happened last year. Some of the bandits’ leaders looked on the coming snow as a boon. If the passes were clogged, after all, it would thwart the Kingpriest’s troops. Tavarre, however- who had taken command of the city’s defenders after Ossirian’s death-scoffed at the notion, his scarred face sour.

“We didn’t have enough food for last winter,” he noted. “Another season like that, and half of Govinna will starve. When the spring comes, the Scatas will attack anyway, and by then we’ll surely be too weak to hold against them.”

He didn’t mention what else troubled him. If the outriders’ reports were correct, and two full Dromas were marching through Taol, it didn’t matter when they came. Even with those who had pledged their swords to the Lightbringer since his arrival, the city’s defenders were too few to stand against such a force. Govinna’s gates might be impregnable, but that would make little difference when such a mighty foe started scaling her walls.

True to form, the snow turned to drizzle when dawn came, and fog settled in, filling the streets with gray murk. The city became a ghostly place, full of muffled sounds and eerie glows where lanterns burned. The mourning cloths outside the houses and shops hung limp, soaked through, and when the mourners made their way to the