Chosen of the One: Chapter 6, Part 2

3 January 2026

We return with the rest of Chapter 6, in which our kailu apprentice returns home with his injured charge, and we meet his quixotic wife, Klarissa (Klare to her friends). . . . (30 December 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 6, Part 2

He left the small house in the northwest quarter and moved at his fastest speed, which was only a slow walk, toward his home near the school of the kailum. He prepared himself for a scolding, knowing his wife of less than a year would be very upset by his not coming home when he said he would. He mulled over in his mind possible responses to his wife’s wrath, thinking of how he might divert her from her anger. The awemi, although asleep, might be useful; her desire to help those in need would cool her anger. Eventually, after leaving the northwest quarter of the city, passing through the west quarter and entering the southwest quarter, he turned down his street and steered toward the only house still lit. He opened the door and went in.

“Hello, dear,” Klaybear called, trying to make his voice light. “I’m home.”

“Oooh! You!” Klare’s voice shouted from another room. “And about time! Leaving me here half the night wondering if you still lived or if you were lying wounded in the ditch somewhere, unconscious or worse. I’ve half a mind to send you to the backyard to sleep with the dog!”

“But we don’t have a dog,” Klaybear mumbled to himself as he moved into the guest room and laid the awemi carefully on the bed. He turned back to the door, hearing his wife bustle in, and started to speak. “Look what I’ve. . . .” He stopped mid-sentence, interrupted when his eyes fell upon Klare’s face. As with the awemi, so also the face of his wife triggered another explosion of images from his vision. He staggered back onto the bed and felt his forehead and hand begin to pulse: eyes open ashes falling vacant crumpled body naked swollen lying lashed red hair honey sliced belly blood klare face hollow eyes “Klaybear?” blood vacant empty staring unchild empty vacant staring eyes green blood red vacant spilled staining green trampled grass laughter eyes open ashes falling vacant crumpled body naked swollen lying lashed red honey hair sliced belly blood klare face empty staring eyes hollow green staining staff rod sword flaring belly whole lashes green white gold fire smoothing searing flesh blood chest moving eyes filled voice calling smile calling voice “Klaybear!” filled eyes moving chest blood flesh searing smoothing fire gold white green lashes whole belly flaring sword rod staff staining green hollow eyes staring empty face klare blood belly sliced hair honey red lashed lying swollen naked body crumpled vacant falling ashes open echoeslaughterblood pain laughterstaringvacant eyeslaughterblood bloodblood laughterpainpainpainpainpain. . . . Klare’s face, wrinkled with concern and calling him, cut-off the explosion of images hurled into his consciousness.

“Klaybear!” Klare shook him, her voice now sounding frightened. “Are you ill? Why does the wound on your forehead pulse with angry red light? I feared to touch you. . . .”

Klaybear saw the tears forming in her green eyes and wrapped his arms tightly about her small, lithe body. He sobbed as he buried his face in her honey-flecked brown hair and smelled the scent of lilacs blooming. She held him as fiercely as he held her, waiting for his sobs to subside before releasing him and looking deeply into his brown eyes. She stroked his curly hair and, with the fingers of her mind, tried to soothe and smooth his troubled thoughts. He could feel her mental fingers smoothing the chaos in his mind, wishing all the time that he could share his troubles to ease the burden of his mind and help his heart settle down. When he relaxed, she kissed him once on the cheek and stood to examine the person he had brought home. Her hands glowed green, and she moved from head to toe and back again, pausing occasionally to heal the awemi’s cuts and bruises.

“Where did you find him?” she asked as she let her hands fall to her sides, the green light winking out.

“Lying in a ditch. He claimed to have been dragged there behind the horses of his assailants, escaping by means of a dagger hidden in his belt. But his wounds do not seem grievous.”

“No, minor cuts and abrasions. No signs of internal injuries. How soon after you cast a healing orthek upon him did he go to sleep?”

“Five minutes, maybe longer.”

“Nothing serious then.” She held one hand out to her him. “Come on, I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

He took her hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Not very, but I’m sure a bite of something would help. Sorry I’m so late,” he added, smiling weakly.

She nodded and led him to the kitchen, seated him at the table, and moved to one of the counters. “Now tell me what happened while I make you a sandwich,” she said, taking a loaf of bread from one of the cupboards.

Klaybear began to recount his day, from the time he left home early in the morning until he returned. Klare interrupted him at the point where the messenger first spoke.

“You didn’t see him before, when you entered the glade?” Klare asked, turning from the counter and ceasing to slice the loaf of bread; she held the knife poised to slice down.

“No, I didn’t see him until after he spoke,” Klaybear replied. “He could have been hiding behind one of the trees and stepped out when I released the energy.”

“I thought you said he was sitting in Elos’s Chair?” Klare turned back to the counter and set the knife down, putting sliced beef and cheese along with a leaf of lettuce on the sandwich.

“He was.”

“It would be difficult for anyone to step from behind one of the trees and sit on Elos’s Chair without being seen; both altar and chair are in plain view from where you were standing.” Klare placed the sandwich she made on a plate and carried it to the table. “What will you drink, dear?”

“Milk, to soothe my stomach.”

Klare took a glass from another cupboard and took a bottle of milk from their tengle. “You didn’t notice any surges of power before you saw him?” She filled the glass and returned the bottle to their tengle.

“No, and because of the excess of energy I had taken in, I would have felt even the smallest orthek. The fact that he sat in the Elos’s Chair put me slightly off-guard: only a servant of the One, I thought, would sit in his chair. Also, there was something about him that seemed familiar, but I cannot recall what.”

“Something about his clothing,” Klare began, “or the way he talked, or maybe his appearance?” she suggested to try and spark his memory.

Klaybear sat in thought for a time, but the details of the stranger were hazy and slipped away even as he tried to recall them; he let his breath escape slowly and shook his head. “The more I think about him,” he noted, “the less I can remember.”

Klare frowned. “Let it go,” she said, “for now; continue with your story.”

Klaybear went on to describe his encounter with the messenger, how he had been given the mark, and the visions he had seen. “That’s what troubles me the most,” he said when he finished.

“What do you mean?” Klare asked.

“You’ve read more of the accounts of the visions of kailum than I have: those I have read are usually clear and easy to understand, not jumbled the way mine were. I don’t remember one like mine.”

“I don’t recall one that is anything like yours,” Klare replied thoughtfully, “at least according to what little you have told me. You need to sit and write them all down.”

“I’m not sure I could. I can remember them now,” Klaybear said, “the scattered faces and the situations, but even as I try to formulate a narrative, I’m adding to what I was given, filling in the connective devices that seem to have been left out. Also, if I think about any image too carefully, I find myself hurled into the whirlwind that continually circles while changing directions, forward and backward, left and right, up and down, in and out, like the tide, or waves on the beach. Worse yet, I’m not sure where one image ends and the next one begins. For me to choose a point may be to impose the wrong order upon them, which in turn could lead to someone’s death.”

“I get the idea,” Klare remarked, her expression puzzled, “I think. But again, I don’t have the details of which you speak.”

Klaybear nodded. “Take the awemi, for example. In both versions, I see him trapped in the webs of some kind of giant, misshapen spider-like creature with a puri face. But in one version the monster tears him apart and eats him, while in the other version I think I see my older brother fighting the monster along with a shining kortexi who kills the monster and frees the awemi from the webs, which cannot be possible, since Delgart must surely be dead by now.” Klaybear’s face wrinkled with confusion.

Klare opened her mouth to respond, thought better of what she was going to say, and changed course. “And you say that when you saw the awemi’s face for the first time, these visions repeated?” she asked instead.

“Forward and backward, almost melting together, until I wrenched myself free.”

“And your head and hand pulsed with red light, like it did when you first looked on me?”

Klaybear nodded.

“And like the awemi you saw two versions of me: one where I died and one where I didn’t?”

He did not speak at once, seeing her again as she had appeared in his confused vision, and the thought nearly hurled him back into the gyre; he shook his head to dispel it. “No,” he finally replied, sobbing, “you were dead in both.”

Klare fell into the chair next to Klaybear. “How is that two versions?” she managed in a hollow voice.

“In the second, I think you are healed and come back to life.”

“That’s not possible!” Klare hissed. She shook her head to dispel the thought. “How?” she asked, her face white with shock.

“I saw green, white, and gold fire close your wounds and bring life into your dead eyes and a smile to your face.”

“The green fire is obviously a kailu orthek,” Klare said, “but no kailu or anyone else has ever brought anyone back once the person has died.”

“It happens twice in my visions,” he added after a moment’s silence.

“What? Twice?” Klare asked, eyebrows rising into her honey-flecked brown hair.

“You, and someone I felt I knew but cannot name. He was killed on an altar in some kind of ritual, after which the same green, white, and gold fire combined to heal the knife wound and return him to life. I was only shown one version of his death and return to life.”

“I’m not sure you should tell me any more about . . . your vision of me.” Klare looked past him, seeing nothing. They sat in silence for several silent minutes before she spoke again. “You said you saw both your brothers?”

“I think so,” Klaybear replied. “I saw Rokwolf jump between the red-haired maghi and a purgle. I saw him thrust his sword into the purgle, saw the sword explode, and saw Rokwolf and the purgle consumed by fire, like the breath of a red aperu.”

“And the second version?”

“There was no other version.”

She frowned pensively. “What about your lost brother, Delgart?”

“I think I saw him; he looked like a younger, haggard version of father, and he also looked as tall, maybe taller, than Rokwolf. In the first version I saw him dying on a wind-swept beach, stab wound in his side. In the second he was lying wounded under a tree, saved by the red-haired maghi from a gheli. But I also saw a version of the red-haired maghi slain by the gheli.” Klaybear sighed and let his head fall slowly to the table. “I can’t get the images out of my mind; every time I even close my eyes, the dream-vision restarts and replays as long as my eyes remain closed.”

Klare left her chair and stood beside Klaybear, stroking his head and neck. “Didn’t you say that you slept quietly for a while, after drinking a sleeping potion?”

“As long as I remain in deep sleep, the dreams do not trouble me. But we move in and out of deep sleep several times each night, so each time I move out of deep sleep, I will be haunted by these visions.”

Klare smiled and lifted his chin. Their eyes met. “Have you forgotten that I, also, am a kailu, and can send you into deep sleep whenever the occasion requires? Besides,” she said, her smile turning impish, “I have ways of distracting you, not available to anyone else.” She untied the sash of her robe, opened it, and wrapped it around his head. “What was that, dear? Your voice is muffled. . . .”

Come back Monday for another installment in Book 1 of The Redemption, Chosen of the One, available from Smashwords for free!