Chosen of the One: Chapter 3, Part 2

25 December 2025

First, we wish all a Merry Christmas! Remember who we are celebrating and his gift to us, the greatest gift ever given, his life a ransom for ours!

Today’s installment of Chosen of the One, introduces a character of vital importance to our kortexi, Sir Blakstar, one who will play a significant role later in our epic. Her name is Kovaine, a slave of the red kailum, daughter of a Belford Madame and a sea captain, both of whom will also appear later in the story. Enjoy! (4 November 2013) 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.

Chapter 3, Part 2

Kovaine stood slowly, the pain from whip lashes still sharp although she had applied the ointment she had stolen from one of the red kailum–a fair exchange for how rough he had been with her. She had slept late, much later than usual, as she had been kept awake by her masters, beaten for refusing to join the Magsamel’s group of favored karam; it must be past noon, and she felt a rumble in her stomach, but the thought of eating made her ill. She belted on a silk robe, hoping that it would irritate her sore skin less than the rough-spun wool of her normal work clothes. She wished that she could get a message to her mother across the river in Belford, asking her to bring a supply of healing herbs and salves when she visited the red kailu fortress in three days; it was only her mother’s relationship with the Master of Arms that gave her any relief from the horror of her life as a slave to the red kailum. She looked at her face in the small mirror above her washstand and saw dark circles beneath her blue eyes along with the dirty tracks of her tears; her blonde hair looked stringy and dirty, and her scalp itched terribly. She recognized that she should wash her hair and face before leaving her cell, but she ruthlessly put down the urge, reaching into a clay pot she kept hidden behind the wash stand and pulling out a handful of ashes, shared it between both hands, then artfully tossed the ashes onto her head and hair. With the ash still clinging to her fingers and palms, she dirtied her face, covering the tear tracks, then ran both hands through her shoulder length hair, ensuring that the golden color did not show through the ash and oil. She looked at her small wardrobe and considered throwing the dirty black dress over her silk robe, since she would be beaten again if anyone caught her wearing silk to work in the kitchens. Her mother kept trying to convince her that her beatings would be fewer if she would become pliable and do what her masters wanted, which included frequent baths and attention to her appearance–to attract their notice, her mother often said. Their notice was precisely what she was trying to avoid, as she had nearly become one of the Magsamel’s favorites on the previous day. She shuddered at the thought, knowing that few survived the attentions of the head of the red kailu order for very long.

Better not to be too obvious, she thought, taking the black wool work dress from her wardrobe and preparing to pull it over her head.

Her door crashed open, and a magluku flared in the doorway, momentarily blinding her.

“Are you certain this is the right one?” a voice that clanked like old bones asked.

“Yes, my lord,” a simpering voice that sounded familiar to her replied, “this one is the daughter of the kara across the river–the one who is a favorite of Master Lufekuro and visits each week, bringing several. . . .”

“I don’t care about her filthy habits!” the bony voice interrupted. “As long as this is her daughter, then she is the one I want; bring her!”

Rough hands grabbed both her arms and dragged her from her room into the hall; before her eyes could adjust to the dim light in the hallway outside her room, someone blindfolded her, then pulled her silk robe off her shoulders and arms. Her arms were forced in front of her and bound tightly together with a leather thong.

“She is quite dirty, my lord,” the simpering voice noted, “should we wash her?”

There was a pause as if the other were considering the question.

“We should at least rinse the dirt out of her hair,” the bony voice answered. “Our master does want that wretched kortexi to have some idea what she looks like, beyond her naked body,” he finished and began to laugh, which sounded to her as if someone were shaking a bag filled with old bones. Several other voices laughed along with the bony voice. “You!” the bony voice snapped imperiously. “Grab that pitcher of water from her room–it is all we have time for.”

“Bend over kara,” the simpering voice whispered next to her ear, “although the only surprise you’ll get is from the water!” he laughed wickedly, causing other voices to laugh.

“Keep on task!” the bony voice snapped. “You can play with her after we have fulfilled the Great Lord’s orders.”

She was roughly bent forward and the contents of her water pitcher were slowly poured over her head; someone else scrubbed at her hair and scalp while the lukewarm water was dumped on her hair; it splashed on the stone floor and wet her feet and legs up past her knees. The strong hands jerked her upright, and the water still on her head began running and dripping onto her shoulders and back, causing the lash marks to sting.

“He’ll be most impressed with her,” the simpering voice noted sarcastically.

“Get that robe on her,” the bony voice growled, “we don’t have time for your usual nonsense!”

“Yes, my lord,” the simpering voice replied, and the hands threw an itchy wool robe onto her shoulders. She drew a sharp breath, feeling pain from her neck to her buttocks; the robe was belted tightly around her, pinning her arms more closely against her front. The hands pushed her forward, holding her up when she stumbled, and she passed through something that felt like a curtain of ice, stepping from stone onto rough ground. The scent of pine and fir filled her nostrils, with an undercurrent of smoke and salt. They stopped moving.

“Wait here,” the bony voice said, “I will return with our guest within the hour.”

“As you wish, my lord,” the simpering voice replied then fell silent.

Kovaine heard sounds around her, and she soon realized that the sounds were not coming from the space immediately around where she stood blindfolded but were more distant, as if the place where she stood were avoided by the life around it. She recognized several familiar bird calls, but the one most prevalent was that of gulls, and if she focused her attention to her left, she could make out the sounds of waves rolling onto a beach. The scents told her that she must be in a forest near the sea, but where that forest was, or which sea, she had no idea; the nearest forest to Belford was a swamp, nowhere near the sea. Her thoughts shifted back to the conversation of her captors, and she wondered why they came looking for her, specifically, what they meant to do with her, and why this kortexi? She only knew that the order was a northern one, filled with prudish zealots, worse than other northerners, who were some sort of holy warriors that would kill a kara on sight–what did she have to do with any northerner, let alone, a kortexi? Her wounds hurt, and she wanted to sit down, at least, if her captors would allow it.

“Can I sit down while we wait?” she asked in her most polite voice.

“No, I think not,” the simpering voice replied.

“It is too bad we don’t know how long that purgle will be,” a second, rough voice noted, “then we could amuse ourselves while we wait–she is quite pretty, for a kara slave,” he added, laughing gruffly; two others laughed with him.

“Yes, too bad,” the simpering voice agreed while the others laughed, “but Lord Xythrax would obliterate us all, if he caught us.” His statement stopped their laughter, and silence returned, but for the natural sounds, for several moments.

“I’d like to obliterate him!” the rough voice exclaimed suddenly. “I can’t stand him, or any of the others like him!”

“That kind of talk will get you transformed into one of his toy nekerpu,” the simpering voice replied. “Would you like to do his bidding for the rest of time?” he asked.

“Grr!” the rough voice answered, and Kovaine could tell that he was afraid. “The thought makes my blood turn to ice!”

“It should, unless you are stupid,” a nasally voice noted. “Besides, none know where he has hidden his soul–if we could discover that little fact . . . ,” he let his voice trail off, and the rough voice snorted.

“Aye, if only,” the rough voice said, “but you are more likely to see me as Magsamel first!” Three of them laughed at this idea.

“Quiet! Someone is coming!” the simpering voice hissed.

“Where is Xythrax?” a purring, female voice asked, but there was a note of challenge and roughness in the voice.

“Off retrieving our guest,” the simpering voice replied; the others laughed at this response, but their laughter sounded strained.

“So, she is the one,” the female stated. “She doesn’t look like much to me, but then, I am no kortexi, and who can understand their taste in females?” she asked, a hint of laughter mixed with a note of sarcasm in her sultry voice; the red kailum holding her laughed raucously.

“She is one of our kara slaves,” the simpering voice noted when the laughter died away, “the daughter of a prominent kara of Belford.”

“How fitting!” the female exclaimed. “The kortexi and the kara–a perfect pair . . . once we have finished with them both,” she went on after a slight pause and igniting the laughter again.

“Does she know?” the female voice asked.

“She has been told nothing,” the simpering voice answered.

“Now is the time to tell her . . . ,” the female voice began, then paused, “but only enough to start her wondering.”

“Xythrax never told us to . . . ,” the simpering voice tried to protest, but the female cut him off abruptly.

“He told you only what you needed to know,” she snapped, “and now I will tell her what she needs to know: the kortexi is your destined mate; it amused the Great Lord to find you, and bring you to this kortexi, your future husband, only to separate you again, without either of you really knowing anything about the other. This will make his search more . . . interesting,” she added, her voice more sultry, almost a purr, before she laughed wickedly; the others joined her.

“Me? Marry a kortexi?” Kovaine said. “He will kill me as soon as he learns what I am, what you have made me into.”

The female voice laughed again. “He might just do that,” she said, “which will make his pain, on realization of what he has done, all the more sweet.”

Kovaine tried to pull away from those holding her, but her struggling only caused them to grip her tighter; she stopped struggling in order to stop the pain from their vise-like hands. She tried slumping in apparent defeat, to get them to relax their hold on her, but they only laughed harder and pulled her to her feet.

“Look!” the nasal voice exclaimed, stopping both their laughter and her struggling. “Our master returns!”

“I must fetch the breeder,” the female said.

Kovaine heard the sounds of the female voice leaving, then heard the sounds of many heavy feet, soon followed by the bony voice speaking, which must have been Xythrax.

“Yes,” Xythrax’s bony, deep voice began, “I have loosened my hold upon you, but only so that you may struggle against your plight and cause yourself further injury. Remember that I, Xythrax, right hand of Gar, Great Lord of the Universe, hold you a finger’s width from your personal hell. The Great Lord commanded your capture, chosen of the One, the would-be mightiest warrior to ever walk the land, but being chosen is to become a lodestone for evil: the brighter your light shines, the greater the darkness that will surround you and snuff out your light. The Great Lord commanded that we give you special treatment, for you will create the instrument of your own downfall. Behold,” he said, raising his voice, “a pura breeder.”

The sounds that followed were too soft for Kovaine to distinguish what they were, so she focused instead upon the words; she wondered what Xythrax meant by calling this kortexi chosen of the One, and the other things about lodestones and lights. Then another thought occurred to her: if these kortexi were as prudish as she had heard, how would this one, her future mate, feel about being forced to have sex with a pura? Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of ripping cloth, followed by a new voice so loud it echoed around her.

“No!” the kortexi shouted in denial of what she guessed must be happening, then his shout became a howl of anguish that tore at her insides; she felt sorry for the kortexi captive, remembering how it felt to be forced.

“Remember,” Xythrax said, “you must not resist, lest I plunge you into the flames of your physical hell. We give this service to all would-be kortexem who fall into our hands.”

“Claws, not hands,” the female voice purred. “You will give me much pleasure, young one, once the breeder has finished with you.”

“Rupansa!” a new female voice cracked like a whip. “He is mine,” the voice hissed, “not yours! I was chosen for this!”

“Demansa, dear sister,” the first female voice–Rupansa–simpered, “I was merely preparing him for you. . . .”

“Lying potuka!” the second, Demansa, snapped. “Our master will feed you to his pet if you do not follow the plan, especially with this one, and the plan says I have him first–the strongest seed produces the most powerful offspring.”

Rupansa laughed. “Not in one who has never . . . ,” she paused, for Kovaine had screamed and broken free of her captors, hurtling herself at the ponkolam, although she could not see them.

“No! You won’t have him!” Kovaine screamed. “He’s mine!” When the second ponkola, Demansa, had appeared and started speaking, something awoke deep inside Kovaine, a feeling that she had never felt in all her life, a feeling of jealousy, and with it, a desire to possess the unnamed northerner for herself alone. As the feeling of jealousy grew, her anger grew with it, until the moment when Rupansa laughed. Since the attention of her captors was on the two ponkolam, Kovaine managed to jerk her arms free of their clutching hands and leap forward; one of the red kailum reached out to snatch her back, catching her hood and pulling both hood and blindfold free. Kovaine saw both ponkolam looking at her, looks of surprise mingled with amusement on their faces, neither making any move to protect themselves, and then her eyes met those of the kortexi, his straight black hair disheveled, his clothes torn open revealing a well-muscled chest, stomach, strong thighs and loins, but instead of feeling a surge of desire when her eyes met his dark eyes, she felt a wave of fear and panic that caused her to stagger to a halt; an instant later, the heavy hand of one of her captors struck the side of her head, sending her body sprawling and her mind into darkness. . . .

Come back again for the next installment of the first book in our epic fantasy series, The Redemption, in which we will see Blakstar & Kovaine’s first meeting, facilitated by Elos while all three share the same dream, distracting Blakstar from what Xythrax and the ponkola sisters, Demansa & Rupansa, are doing to him. Or, if you cannot wait for next week, go to Smashwords and download the entire book for free!