Chosen of the One: Prologue, Part 2

18 December 2025

Part 2 of the Prologue to the first book of The Redemption series. Again, right click on this link to the Glossary for this book, and open it in a new tab for easy access to the definitions of the new words.

23 September 2013

We continue with Part 2 of the Prologue of our epic fantasy, Chosen of the One: Book 1 of The Redemption, the serialized version of the novel, currently available from Smashwords for free! This week we meet the archfiend and one of his henchmen–Gar and Motodu–as they steal something highly important, and then use it to ‘damage’ a pair of the chosen, Thalamar & Rose.

Prologue, Part 2

Atno 3524, “The Great Year,” Early Spring

The central hall of the school of the white maghem was dark and silent but for the soft glowing and humming of the protective ortheks surrounding the artifacts displayed around this large, airy chamber. Pillars of white marble supported the vaulted ceiling, high overhead; the night sky was visible through the many narrow windows high in the walls, and one shaft of moonlight fell upon a single display case at the precise center of this wide, round room. Gems glittered, reflecting the thin shaft of light, but the platinum rod appeared dull gray, the satin cushion cold silver in the light of the moon. The crystal case pulsed and hummed, the many elemental forces that surrounded and protected it just visible, evidence of the many complex ortheks that secured the rod that lay within, and only the sedra knew how to remove them all. The rod belonged to Melbarth, the founder of the white order, after whom the city, school, and order were named, a maghi who lived more than three millennia before. All the students and masters of the school passed through this room and passed by this crystal case many times each day, a reminder of what they could achieve, but it was also a reminder of what they had lost, for none today could make a rod or a staff that was its equal, the knowledge of its making lost. At this hour of the night, some two hours past midnight, nothing stirred within the hall.

In the shadows of a nearby marble pillar, an archway of deeper shadow, like a piece of the elemental Void, silently opened; two hooded and cloaked figures stepped out. Had anyone been in the hall to notice the strange manner of their arrival, this student, master, or hierarch would have only noticed that one of them walked on booted feet, for the hard sounds of boots stepping across the marble floor, and that the other did not wear boots, or shoes of any kind, for the sound of its footfalls was like the sound of hands gently flapping on stone. The two figures stopped in front of the crystal case, pausing for only a moment.

“Pathetic,” the taller, booted figure whispered in a voice filled with derision. He waved one hand carelessly over the crystal case; the pulsing light and humming sounds ceased at once. The figure made a lifting gesture with his hand and outstretched arm, and the case opened; the ornately carved platinum rod rose out of the satin cushion and into the outstretched hand of the second figure. The hand of this figure, however, was nothing like the first: the skin was pale green, and the hand was narrow and longer, with only two fat fingers and a thumb, and all three digits were lined with round indentations, like some kind of sea creature. The rod started to glow with an angry red light, the huge diamond atop the rod lit with bloody light, but the figure now holding the rod spoke some words in a voice that hissed and bubbled, with an oddly muffled quality, causing the angry light to fade slowly and finally wink out, becoming again its former dull gray in the strange, green-skinned hand, with only a tiny pinpoint of red light still visible at the center of the eye-shaped diamond that formed the platinum rod’s apex.

“Hold up the rod,” the first figure growled. He waved his hand again, and an exact copy of the rod appeared on the white satin cushion within the crystal case. The figure waved his hand across the crystal case, the case closed, and the humming, pulsing protective ortheks re-activated. “We must go,” he noted, “there is work that we must perform now that we have that rod.”

“Yes,” the second hissed, a note of exultation in his strange voice, “there is nothing I cannot do with this rod.”

The first figure whipped around and grabbed the second by the neck, lifting the second off the ground. “Never forget,” he growled, “that you would not hold that rod without me! If you ever betray me, Motodu, I will destroy you!” Two points of red light flashed from inside the shadows of the first figure’s hood, and the eye-shaped diamond atop the rod flashed red in response. His voice, nearly a shout, quieted as suddenly as it had risen in volume. “I am your master: never forget that.” The first figure dropped the second back onto the marble floor, the feet slapping hard, the sound echoing around the chamber. For one brief moment, when the first figure turned and stalked away, the second raised the rod, the light in the diamond turning a sickly green and glowing brightly. “Are you certain, Motodu,” the first asked without turning, as he reopened the black archway, “that you have sufficient command of that rod to face me? Only the chosen with all three keys could hope to do that, powerful though you think you are; I suggest you stop courting oblivion so that we can take care of what we need to before the rod rejects you.” Gar cast a half-glance back over his shoulder. “Unless you’d like me to leave you here, in the middle of Melbarth’s school? I could set off all those alarm ortheks and remove the duplicate rod: you’d be trapped here, caught with Melbarth’s Rod in your slimy hands, not even knowing that the rod itself could have allowed you to escape.” He stepped into the black archway, grinning smugly to himself when he heard the sounds of Motodu’s feet slapping across the marble floor as the morgle ran to the black archway before Gar let it close.

Atno 3523, Late Spring

The small room with a simple cot was dark, with only a narrow beam of moonlight entering through a window that was hardly more than a slit in the stone wall. Fast asleep on the cot lay a tall, thin young wethi whose mass of long hair obscured his face. Out of the darker shadows of the room, two cloaked figures stepped through the shaft of moonlight to the head of the cot. One figure raised a rod topped with an eye-shaped diamond that glittered coldly in the moonlight, then burst into life, emitting a sickly green light; the second figure held out his hands, which glowed with bloody light.

“There are two areas,” Gar, the figure without the rod, whispered, “in which the pattern must be altered, such that, when the time is ripe, those meddling fools will discover my symbol written into the very patterns of his mind and thoughts; thus will he be condemned with the others.”

“As you wish, my lord,” the figure with the rod hissed, and both of them reached forward with hands and the rod, but what they were doing could not be seen in the actions of their hands: their hands and the rod hovered motionless in the air over the head of the sleeping young wethi, the rod still glowing brightly.

After a few moments of silence, the figure with the rod spoke again. “My lord, I thought that this one studied with his master,” he hissed, “not here at the school.”

“He is here to take their trials and to receive his rod,” the other replied, “which is why I moved to this moment to alter his mind, when he was out of sight of his master,” he added, not disguising his derision.

The figure with the rod thought about this for a moment and realized something, but he did not voice it, wanting to stay on his lord’s good side, for he knew that the sooner he did his lord’s bidding, the sooner he would be left alone to use the rod for his own purposes. The young wethi on the cot groaned and started to turn.

“You are supposed to be keeping him asleep, Motodu,” Gar growled.

“Sorry, my lord,” Motodu replied, “but a thought just occurred to me: aren’t these sleeping cells also protected by ortheks that set off alarms if anyone enters or leaves?” Motodu asked as he used the rod to put the young wethi into a deeper sleep; the question was, he realized, foolish, but it was the first thing that came to his mind to cover his lapse. He focused his thoughts on the question so that his master, if he tried to read it, would see only his concern for being caught in his mind.

Gar snorted. “We did not enter or leave by the door,” he scoffed, “surely you should have realized this?”

“But wouldn’t his master have prepared for something like this?” Motodu countered, his voice hissing and bubbling. “He is the best thinker and logician of the wethem since the maker of this very rod . . . ,” he started to say but was interrupted.

“Be careful, Motodu,” Gar noted, cutting him off, “your words reveal your sympathies, and sympathizing with my enemies will cost you everything,” he finished in a quiet but cold whisper.

These words made Motodu angry, so angry that, for a moment, he forgot to whom he spoke. “Save your threats for your squealing servants!” he hissed. “None of them could touch this rod, let alone use it!” He stabbed the rod toward Gar; the light from the eye-shaped diamond flared bright green, reflecting Motodu’s anger. “None of them could do what I’m doing to the minds of the chosen! Do not threaten me, my lord!” he finished in a hissing whisper as cold and threatening as Gar’s had been.

A moment of silence followed, then Gar chuckled and pointed one finger at the dark space inside Motodu’s hood that must have been right between his eyes. “Motodu,” he laughed, “you’d better learn to control your tongue, especially in my presence. The next hint of such insolent behavior from you, and this is the last thing you will ever see: the end of my finger pointing directly between your eyes, because what will follow will be a piece of the Void, and you will be instantly obliterated.” Gar lowered his hand and brought his face to within an inch of Motodu’s before he spoke again. “Understand?” he asked in a barely audible whisper, and when, after a moment, Motodu gave a slight nod, Gar pulled back his head. “Then let’s finish this one so we can move on to the next.”
Motodu bit his tongue and turned back to the mind of the young wethi, now sleeping deeply on the cot before them.

3523, Late Spring

On the northeast edge of the village of Artowgar, all was silent on the farm; even the large, farm cats sat still, eyes glowing brightly in the moonlight as they watched for vermin. Inside the house, the family slept peacefully, although in one small room, a candle burned on a small writing desk where a thin, dark-haired young wetha sat poring over her lessons, working in secret so that neither her family, nor the young maghi she fancied, and who was the apprentice of her mistress’s husband, had any idea of what she studied, tutored by the matron of the tower nearly twenty miles to the west of her village. The work was difficult, and even more so for having to keep it concealed from all others until the time was right; it made for long, weary days, and longer nights with little time for rest, but she kept herself going with an image of the look on the young maghi’s face when she revealed to him that she, too, could use elemental forces. Her mistress had told her it was important, vitally important, for her to learn the art. She glanced at the candle and saw that it had burned down to her mark; she finished what she was working on, whispered a word to hide her books and parchment, blew out the candle, and got wearily into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she smiled, thinking of the shocked look on his face the first time she would cast an orthek in his presence. She thought she should wait until after they were joined, and they were alone for the first time; she wondered if there was a orthek to make one’s clothes fly off. . . .

Two figures stepped out of the darkness and into her room; without a word, the taller of the two hooded and cloaked figures nodded, and the shorter held out a rod that glowed with green light. The two stood for a minute next to her head, silent and motionless; the young wetha sighed in her sleep, the smile replaced by a pained look. The two turned their backs on her, the light atop the rod winked out, and they stepped back into the darkness from which they had come.

Come back tomorrow for the next installment of our epic, the first part of Chapter 1, in which we introduce another of our major players, Rokwolf, in what could only be described as a ‘dodgy’ place. . . .