Chosen of the One: Chapter 1, Part 1

19 December 2025

Today we begin the first chapter of Chosen of the One, first book of The Redemption series, which is available for free. We again remind our readers to right-clock on the Glossary link, open in a new tab or window, thus enabling the reader to learn what each of these new terms mean.

30 September 2013

This week’s installment introduces another of the chosen, Rokwolf, as he sneaks around a more ‘dodgy’ part of Holvar–home of the seklesem, including the Fereghen & Feragwen (leaders of both the seklesi order and the land as a whole)–seeking information about his future. Enjoy! If you tire of waiting for the next and succeeding installments, the entire book is available from Smashwords for free!

Chapter 1, Part 1

Only a great fool, one in utter despair or in absolute desperation trusts the word of a methaghi.

Anonymous saying among the seklesem.

Atno 3523, Late Winter

A tall, cloaked, young wethi looked furtively around the darkened street in the merchant district of Holvar. It was two hours past midnight; no one moved along the dirty street but for a few rats and one mangy dog, sniffing around the refuse dotting the street’s edges. The young wethi looked carefully along the street, eyeing all the windows and doors. Seeing no signs that anyone watched him, he slipped silently into the narrow alley and climbed a flight of rickety stairs. Each board creak caused him to wince and glance around, assuring himself that no one had noticed, that no curtain twitched back so someone could see who or what made the noise. On reaching the building’s second floor, and the door at the top of the stairs, he tapped the door softly two times. A tiny panel in the door slid open, and the young wethi gave the correct response. The door opened enough so that he could slip inside, then the door closed quickly and quietly.

In the small, dark antechamber, the young wethi stood and threw back his hood; a beam of light from a carefully opened bull’s eye lantern showed his young face with the hint of a beard, sandy hair hanging to his shoulders, and bright blue eyes.

“Aaah,” a voice hissed, “the seklesi who wanted my master to answer an important question for him. If your superiors knew you were here,” the voice continued in sibilant tones, “you could be expelled.” Although the face behind the lantern was cloaked in shadow, the young seklesi sensed that the wethi holding the lantern was smiling widely. “Follow me,” the voice said, covering the lens and turning away. Now only a small, dark red beam of light illuminated the floor.

The young seklesi followed the dirty, booted feet down a short hallway. The light stopped; a latch clicked and a door opened, flooding the hallway with bright light. The young seklesi squinted in the sudden brightness, then moved slowly past the hooded figure holding the lantern and into the room. The door closed behind him with an audible thunk. The young wethi stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. He sensed that eyes were upon him, examining him from head to toe. Once his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he saw a grey-cloaked figure sitting behind a desk between them; the figure’s hood covered both head and face, so that only a bit of grey beard and the end of a long nose were visible. A silver chain hung around the figure’s neck, with a symbol resting at the center of the figure’s chest, a symbol the young wethi recognized as representing the methaghum.

“You wanted to purchase my services?” a deep, resonant voice asked.

“If the price is right,” the young wethi replied.

“What do you want to know?”

“The future of my second.”

“What precisely do you want to know about your second’s future?”

“Will she marry me?”

A slow chuckle resonated from the grey figure. “That is a difficult and expensive question to answer, and the chances of the answer being wrong are great. Also, she would need to be here, and she would have to agree with what we do. The fact that you have come to me alone, seklesi, tells me she would not. I can only look into your future, and we might see her in it, or we might not. Do you want me to look into your future, seklesi?” the grey figure asked, the last word spoken almost with a laugh.

“I have to know,” the young wethi replied.

“You may be disappointed,” the methaghi noted wryly.

“How much?”

“100 ghelwum, all in advance.”

The young wethi choked. “100 ghelwum?”

“Yes, and if you are not willing to give it to me right now, you will leave and never return to waste my time. I may even tip off your superiors. . . .”

The young wethi interrupted him. “All right! Here is your money,” he said and tossed a bag onto the desk.

The grey figure picked up the bag and opened it, saw the gleam of gold, then slipped the bag into a pocket. He waved his hand and a wooden chair appeared opposite him next to the desk.

“Sit down, seklesi.”

The young wethi sat.

“What is your name, seklesi?”

“Rokwolf.”

“Tell me about your family.”

“I am the younger of twin brothers; our mother died in childbirth; our father died a dozen years ago of an injury, just before I came to Holvar. Our village, just to the north of Hoegart and on the shore of the West Sea, was attacked by pirates; my father was injured in the fight, and my older brother by three years was taken, along with several others. We assume that he has died.” The young wethi broke off.

“Your twin: are you identical?”

“No, he is of a heavier build, slightly shorter and with curly hair; he looks, we were told, more like our mother and I like our father. Our older brother also looked more like our father and me.”

“Is your twin also a seklesi?”

“No, he follows the order of Shigmar, and he is just finishing his studies there.”

“Describe the wetha, your second.”

“She is lithe and well-formed, with dark eyes and blue-black hair, about a head shorter than I am. She is from Dolvert, where her parents still live and are merchants. She has a younger brother and sister; her brother trains to become a seklesi.”

“That should be sufficient.” A large crystal globe appeared on the table between them. The methaghi reached out with both hands and held them over the clear crystal; purple light glowed from his hands, and the crystal filled with dun colored smoke. “Place both your hands on the crystal and concentrate on your second, the wetha.”

Rokwolf did as instructed. The dun colored smoke swirled and formed the figure of his second, but there was a patch of darkness shrouding the right side of her face. The view seemed to pull away from her, and he saw other figures coalesce from the smoke: his twin brother stood next to a shorter, green-robed figure with honey-flecked brown hair and green eyes: his twin’s new wife.

“You neglected to mention that your twin was married,” the methaghi said.

“I forgot,” Rokwolf replied. “They were married last summer,” he added.

The grey figure sniffed. More shapes appeared. A tall, gangly, white-robed maghi, with wild red hair, and a thin, beautiful dark-haired wetha stood next to him, also clad in white robes; a shining gold kortexi, with straight, dark hair, and beside him a black-robed wetha with blonde hair and haunted, hollow eyes; a pair of awemem, like children next to the others, both with curly hair, his brown and hers blond, and garbed in black-leather that did not reflect the light; and finally, standing next to his second, he saw his older brother, but like his second, the left side of his older brother’s face was cloaked in shadow. Just beyond them was another figure, hooded and cloaked, but the shadows clinging to this figure made the color of the cloak and hood indiscernible beyond some dark color; it was the figure of a tall, shapely wetha, with golden hair that he recognized as belonging to Klare’s best friend, Sutugno, and her presence and her dark colored robe troubled Rokwolf more than he wanted to admit.

“I sense that these people are, or will be, extremely important to you,” the methaghi said, “that they will each be part of your chosen group, your family, I think.”

“Why am I not there?”

“It could be that we are simply seeing the people who will become part of your family,” he said, “since the place is unspecific. If we were witnessing an actual, future event, we would see a specific place. Here, they are present but surrounded by shadows.”

The globe and table lurched suddenly, almost pulling his hands from the crystal; the scene flashed and winked out, replaced by a hand–his hand–gripping the handle of a sword shaped like the head of an aperu with brightly flashing red rubies for eyes, thrusting the sword into a skinless rib cage cloaked in black, red and blue flames erupted, filling the globe and bathing Rokwolf’s face in light that alternated between red and blue. The sword exploded; his hand burned away, and his hands on the crystal globe felt suddenly hot. Red light exploded from the crystal, knocking both figures back from the globe and desk. Rokwolf’s chair tipped over, and he crashed onto the floor. The methaghi was slammed into the wall behind the desk. Rokwolf got to his feet and brushed himself off.

“What was that?” he asked.

The methaghi sat up in his chair, wheezing and struggling for breath. “I . . . ,” he stammered, “I do not know, nor do I know from whence it came,” he finished, his face having lost its former look of arrogance, replaced by a look of abject fear.

Come back next time for the second part of Chapter 1, in which Rokwolf, along with another member of the chosen, his second captain, Marilee, are outwitted by some of Gar’s forces. . . .