Chosen of the One: Chapter 2, Part 1

22 December 2025

Below is the first part of the second chapter of Chosen of the One, available for free from Smashwords. This chapter was also the very first piece drafted, all the way back in May of 1988! We also note that the interruptions in Thal’s vision as the reader will see below, were not introduced until late in the revision process, using stream of consciousness to reinforce their connection to what will happen to Klaybear in a later chapter. We again remind our readers to right-click on the Glossary link, open in a new tab or window, thus enabling the reader to learn what each of these new terms mean.

14 October 2013

This week’s installment shows us the white maghi apprentice and his master, Kalamar, as Thal casts his first vukeetu, looking into his own future, but the vision goes wrong, showing him things beyond the orthek’s scope; stream of consciousness, in this case, shows the reader that these interpolations in Thal’s vision are exactly that–interruptions coming from an outside source, and one does not need to be a rocket scientist to discern who is the source of these interpolations–more on this later. . . .

Chapter 2, Part 1

Great care must be taken in regard to the images shown in a vukeetu: they can as easily lead one into danger as past it.

Saying attributed to Melbarth

Atno 3524, “The Great Year,” Early Spring

A crack of thunder shook the walls of the tower, jolting the young, red-haired maghi from his meditative state. Thalamar was tall and gangly, like a scarecrow that someone had folded and placed on the floor; he looked toward the study’s large west window and saw rain striking the glass, clicking like handfuls of pebbles thrown against stone. He heard the wind whistling about the tower, smelled the moisture of outside air forced inside by the wind, and knew the unnaturalness of the sudden spring storm. “Isn’t it too early in the spring for a summer storm?” he asked his master.

Kalamar looked up from the book he read and toward the west window, sniffed the air, and felt thunder shake the tower through the soles of his slippers. His clear blue eyes pierced the sheen of water distorting the view through the glass; he watched the storm in silence before looking at his gangly apprentice. Kalamar was thin and frail-looking. His hair and beard were white, matching the color of his robe. An eye-shaped amulet of iron hung on a chain around his neck–the symbol for the order of Melbarth. A less worn copy of the amulet hung around Thal’s neck. Thal sat cross-legged on the floor before Kalamar who sat in a comfortable armchair. Kalamar stood and slowly walked to the study’s northwest window. Reaching with his mind past the rain clattering against the glass and the pines lashed by the wind, he discerned the storm’s driving force, frowned, and pulled his mental probe back, lest that which drove the storm become aware of him. He turned away from the window.

“You’re right, my son,” Kalamar said, his voice crackled with age. “The storm is unnatural and has disturbed your thoughts.” The tall, elderly maghi returned to his chair. “Your mind must be smooth before beginning the incantation, like a calm, waveless sea.”

Thal sighed and closed his eyes. “Yes, master.”

They sat in silence, shutting out the storm’s fury. The old maghi’s eyes shone as he watched his young apprentice.

Kalamar nodded to himself. “Good,” he said quietly. “Now begin.”

Thal opened his eyes, touched the tip of his gray rod to the stone bowl on the floor, and mumbled a word. The bowl’s contents flared and burned with white light. The young maghi stood and touched the rising stream of smoke with his clay rod. Smoke followed the rod as Thal drew an eye shape in the air. The room grew dark; pieces of light gathered to the pupil of the smoky eye, forming a globe of multicolored light about a foot in diameter. He spoke the final word of power, “vukeetu,” and images coalesced within the globe. Two young wethem appeared; their faces were familiar, although Thal knew he had never met them. One was tall and lithe, sandy-haired and gray-eyed, with an angular face. He wore the greens and browns of the forest–a seklesi. The other, the seklesi’s twin brother Thal somehow knew even though they appeared unrelated, was large and bulky, with brown eyes and curly, brown hair. His face was softer and more round. He held a wooden staff in his right hand and wore green robes–a kailu of Shigmar. Flash-flash. Lightning split the globe and flashed images: kailu arched agony hand burning forehead smoking silent scream flash-flash. He also saw two wetham: a seklesa, thin and well formed with blue-black hair, cut short, that shimmered, half her face covered in shadow. Flash-flash blue-black falling face skin falling limbs twisting empty staring flash-flash. The second was a petite wetha with honey-flecked, braided, brown hair, also wearing the green robe of a kailu. Flash-flash naked swollen lashed lying eyes vacant staring green red blood grass staining unchild empty kailu howling echoes falling flash-flash. The images blurred and reformed, giving Thal a dual perspective.

“Keep calm,” Kalamar whispered, “you see yourself in both the present and the future.”

In the globe, Thal stood facing a bipedal creature with sea green skin and black eyes, and a large, bulbous, squid-like head. The creature had no mouth that he could see, but what looked like dangling tentacles where its mouth and nose should have been. “A morgle,” he whispered to himself. Flash-flash red-eyed ponkola kortexi black-haired straining bonds sapling bent gyrating hips flash-flash. On Thal’s right, the curly haired kailu stood. Beyond the kailu, a tall, black haired wethi stood, flaming sword brandished and clad in gold chain mail with a white surcoat–a kortexi of Karble. The morgle waved one two-fingered hand and the darkness before them lightened and revealed the kailu’s twin brother, chained to a bench, the outline of a ponkola straddling him. The kortexi lunged forward, his sword flashed, and the head of the ponkola flew from her shoulders, landing in a pool of light and becoming the head of a wetha with golden hair, causing the bound seklesi to howl with rage. . . . Flash-flash gheli grinning sword curved flashing slicing head red falling lurch flash-flash. Thal’s dual perspective ended, and he saw the large kailu facing a group of ponkolum in a misty, lightless realm. The kailu held a staff topped with what looked like a green star shining in the dimness, and was surrounded by unmoving bodies of seklesem; a second kailu stood beside him. The ponkolum circled the kailum, apparently on their large leathery wings, which meant they must all be in rumepant. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. The skin of the ponkolum was deep, dark red and hairless; two curved horns protruded from either side of their heads. The kailum were large but appeared small before the ponkolum floating horned-head and winged-shoulders above them. The fiends raised their rods and blasted the kailum from several directions, knocking both from their feet with beams of red light; the green, star-like light of the kailu’s staff winked out. The ponkolum grinned wickedly, the light sparkling on bared fangs. The images shifted and Thal again saw from a dual perspective. With him stood the twin brothers and the kortexi, golden flames licking the blade of his sword; an awemi with a round, innocent face and curly brown hair with red highlights, brandishing short sword and dagger, both glowing with cold, blue light; flash-flash round face twisted fear misshapen monstrous spider-shape puri face tearing flesh flash-flash. He also saw a second seklesi, built similar to the first, who appeared to be related to the twins, and his face, like the seklesa, was half-covered in shadow, whirling a pair of curved blades that also glowed with cold, blue light. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. They faced a huge, rust-colored aperu on a smooth black island surrounded by red-orange light and smoke. The aperu lifted its head when one of Thal’s companions, the sandy-haired seklesi in armor as red as the aperu, with a sword whose blade was licked by flames the color of the aperu, strode forward to face the beast alone. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. The aperu appeared to laugh before a thin jet of flame shot from between its clenched teeth. The seklesi disappeared in the flames. . . . Flash-flash leaping seklesi red sword fire exploding purgle ashes dust ashes flash-flash. Thal felt himself flung to the floor. He looked up and saw a skeletal figure wrapped in a black robe. The purgle, raised a bony hand surrounded by red light. Just as the purgle released his fire against Thal, the sandy-haired seklesi jumped between them, thrusting a sword into the purgle’s rib cage, and Thal noticed that the handle of the sword was in the shape of an aperu, reminding him of the beast of the previous vision. The red fire surrounded the seklesi, who arched in pain; flash-flash whirling black door void thrusting void evil empty timespace screaming silence flash-flash the sword exploded. . . . A handsome wethi, with curly blond hair and deep blue eyes, clad only in a loincloth, lay tied to a black stone altar. Raised red welts covered the skin of his chest and thighs. A red-robed figure stepped into view behind the altar; the figure’s face was overshadowed by his hood. Thal only saw the glitter of his eyes, their color shifting across the spectrum and turning ruddy when he stood next to the altar. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. He raised a black dagger, held in both hands, over his head and thrust the dagger with all his might into the heart of the wethi bound to the altar. . . .

Thal’s dual view ended, and he looked again on the globe of whirling lights. He nearly released the orthek when images formed again in the globe. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. He saw a glade he recognized, just to the west of the tower, where a wethi, who looked familiar to him, lay under a tree at the edge of the glade. Lightning flashed around the wethi in unison with the lightning flashing around the tower. Flash-flash pale haggard face tattered rags rain-soaked dripping ghelem grinning flash-flash. Thal released the orthek and looked up at Kalamar. Thal somehow knew that the wethi in the last image, repeated as an interruption in the latter part his vision, was wounded and that he, Thal, must rescue the wounded wethi.

Kalamar nodded. “Your eyes and heart begin to see as one.”

Thal looked west, seeing as Kalamar had seen, past the rain blurred crystal and the wind lashed pines. “I sense . . . many eyes upon the wethi . . . ghelem approaching . . . he knows but is weak from long toil and a recent injury.”

“The test is yours, my son,” Kalamar noted, “and you must face it, alone.”

Thal turned his eyes upon his master. “You knew,” Thal noted, “why didn’t you act?”

“I knew when the image appeared in your vukeetu;” the old maghi replied. “I see past externals into the heart of the storm; I know this is your test.”

Thal lowered his eyes; his cheeks colored. “I’m sorry for presuming. . . .”

“Needless apology,” Kalamar interrupted, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, “you saw more than I could have when I was your rank.” Kalamar smiled warmly upon his son and apprentice. The old maghi drew a symbol in the air between them with his platinum rod. He mumbled a word and touched Thal’s forehead with the tip of his rod.

The red-haired apprentice leapt to his feet, feeling a tingling surge of energy running from the center of his forehead down along every nerve.

“Sprint while the orthek holds!” Kalamar exclaimed.

Thal shot from the room and flew down three flights of stairs to the tower’s ground floor. He touched the door latch and was blown back by the storm’s fury. Drawing deeply upon his master’s orthek, the young, gangly maghi sped out of the tower, wrenching the door closed behind him. Lightning flashed directly overhead and Thal saw the evil force driving the storm, heard its laughter in the thunderclap. He lowered his head into the wind, legs pumping, enhanced by his master’s orthek. Sheets of rain lashed him; gusts of wind pummeled him, but neither slowed his teka augmented pace. He crossed the threshold of their teka fences, passing through a wall of water held there by the wind, as the force driving the storm sought in vain to breech the dome of protection surrounding the tower, but the water slid off harmlessly, streaming from the ends of his wind-whipped hair; his robe and lanky frame cut through the wind like a knife through water, leaving hardly a ripple. As Thal approached the glade, the rain ceased, the wind slowed to barely a breeze, and the clouds lifted. Sensing a change in tactics, Thal slowed and dodged off the path, hiding behind the trunk of a large cedar. Lightning flashed, revealing the ghelem stalking cautiously toward the unmoving figure of the wounded wethi.

Come back next time for the next installment of our epic fantasy, Chosen of the One, in which we will meet another of the chosen’s masters, Headmaster Myron, leader of the kailum of Shigmar in an informative conversation between himself and Hierarch Kalamar. If you cannot wait for next week’s installment, you can download the ebook for free from Smashwords!