Gathering of the Chosen (18 page)

“Disappeared?” Carmaz said. “What does
that mean?”

“No one could locate you,” said Tashir.
“It was like something was blocking our magic. Perhaps that monster
had something to do with it.”

Yoji looked toward the stone chains that
still stood where he had summoned them, a frown on his face. “Just
what
was
that thing, anyway? I've never seen anything like
it in my life.”

“I've seen it before,” said Braim. “First
night on World's End, the thing tried to kill me in my sleep. I
just barely survived thanks to some help from a friend of mine. I
haven't seen it at all since then. Thought it had decided to leave
and not bother anyone anymore.”

“Was it a katabans?” said Carmaz. “Because
it certainly didn't look human, or aquarian for that matter.”

“Who knows?” said Braim with a shrug. “The
gods are
supposed
to be investigating this to find out who
he is and what he's trying to do, though I have no idea how well
that investigation is coming along.”

“Find out what he's trying to do?” Saia
repeated in disbelief. He brushed back some of his wet hair and
pointed at himself and Carmaz. “You mean the fact that he tried to
murder us doesn't imply that maybe he's just a psycho murderer who
likes to kill people?”

“There has to be a deeper reason as to why
he's only targeting us godlings, though,” said Braim. “As far as I
know, he hasn't targeted any katabans or gods. Just us
godlings.”

“There likely is,” said Tashir, nodding.
He looked around the area briefly, like he thought that the monster
might still be around. “But I think we should return to the Stadium
now. I dislike being out in the open like this, especially in a
place where that monster just tried to kill us.”

Before anyone could respond to that, a
loud voice shouted, “Halt!”

The loud voice caused Raya to start and
clutch Carmaz so tightly that she actually hurt him. Nonetheless,
Carmaz looked in the direction that the voice had come from, as did
the other godlings, to see who had shouted at them.

It was a katabans wearing the crystalline
armor of the Soldiers of the Gods. But he wasn't alone. Six other
Soldiers walked behind him, each one clad in armor similar to his,
carrying swords and spears by their sides. Despite the rain, none
of the Soldiers looked even the slightest bit wet, as if they had
been inside until just recently.

The lead Soldier—who must have been their
Captain—was rather thin and scrawny under the armor, but he walked
with far more confidence than Carmaz thought someone like him
should have. The leader Soldier gestured at his underlings, who
walked out from behind him and started examining the scene of the
battle using strange tools that looked like magnifying glasses made
of gold, though what they actually were, Carmaz had no idea.

As for the lead Soldier himself, he walked
up to the group of godlings and stopped. He didn't salute them.
Instead, he said, “Which of you godlings was attacked by the
mysterious assassin?”

“Raya was,” said Carmaz, nodding at the
princess who still clutched him as if her life depended on it. “And
you are?”

“Captain Garvan, Captain of the Soldiers
of the Gods,” the Soldier said, tapping a star on his right
shoulder that must have proved his position in the Soldiers. “When
we heard about the attack from reports we received from katabans
living in the area, we came as soon as we could. Was anyone hurt or
killed in the attack?”

“Hurt, yes, but not killed,” said Carmaz.
“Thankfully.”

Garvan frowned, as if he was actually
disappointed that the monster had failed to claim any lives. But
then his frown vanished and he said, “Where is the assassin now? Is
he still in the area?”

“No,” said Braim. He pointed at the stone
chains that Yoji had made, which some of the other Soldiers were
now inspecting with those strange magnifying glasses. “Bastard ran
off after it became clear that he couldn't beat us. Just melted
into shadow and vanished.”

Garvan looked even more disappointed now,
but then he shook his head and put on a more professional
expression. “Well, we shall use all available methods to us to
track him down, then. Once we do, we will make sure to let you
know.”

“Right,” said Carmaz, who wasn't very
impressed by the slowness of the Soldiers in arriving to fight the
assassin. “Tell me again why it took you guys so long to actually
get here?”

Garvan either ignored or had not heard
Carmaz's question, because he then asked, “Did you learn anything
about the assassin during his assault?”

“Yes,” said Tashir. He held up his sword,
which was still glowing with energy. “The beast can be harmed with
a sword channeling magical energy. It also bleeds gold blood,
similar to what the gods are said to bleed, and the blood melts
anything it touches that is not protected by the gods' divine
energy.”

“Gold blood?” Garvan said. “How odd. Are
you certain of that?”

“As certain that the sky is blue and the
Undersea is deep,” said Tashir.

Garvan stroked his chin. A worried look
appeared on his somewhat human features, a look which told Carmaz
that Garvan was not sure what to make of this new bit of
information.

Finally, Garvan ceased stroking his chin
and said, “Well, if that is all, then I will have some of my
Soldiers escort you all back to the Stadium. We certainly do not
want any of you to be assaulted on the way there by our assassin,
who I sincerely doubt has given up trying to kill you yet.”

“It probably bled to death,” said Yoji
with a chuckle. “You should have
seen
all the blood it lost.
Crazy.”

“Even so, you still need as much
protection as you can get,” said Garvan. “I will assign to you the
best Soldiers in the squad to protect you.”

“As long as they don't escort us
after
we head back to the Stadium, that sounds good to me,”
said Carmaz.

The way Garvan glared at Carmaz told him
that he was probably Garvan's least favorite godling at the moment.
Not that Carmaz really cared. He had a rather low opinion of
katabans in general, so whether one liked him or not was of no
concern to him.

Then Garvan shook his head again and said,
“Your escort should be here shortly. Once they arrive, it will be
safe for all of you to return to the Stadium where you belong.”

***

U
pon returning to the Stadium,
Braim and the others learned that Alira had decided to postpone the
start of the Tournament's first challenge—which was in the Hollech
Bracket, they learned—until the next day. The reasoning behind this
decision was due to Raya's absence, especially when it was
discovered that Raya was too traumatized by the assassin's attack
to do anything. Still, Raya expected to recover and it was believed
that she would be ready to participate in the Hollech Sub-Bracket
challenge the next day.

As a result, the godlings were sent back
to their rooms in the city, because it was now believed that the
assassin, whoever he or she was, was after godlings in general,
rather than Braim in particular. That both reassured and yet
worried Braim. Reassured him because he now felt safer knowing that
he was not being targeted in particular. Worried because that now
meant that the others, including Carmaz and Raya, were at risk as
well.

But the godlings were actually not totally
segregated from each other anymore. For example, Braim learned that
Raya had insisted that Carmaz stay in her apartment with her for
her protection, which Carmaz had grudgingly agreed to, although
several Soldiers were still placed outside the front door to keep
them both safe. Saia had to go back to wherever he and Carmaz
stayed and without protection. As far as Braim could tell, Saia's
life was considered less important than Carmaz's, as his status as
an ordinary mortal meant that it was unlikely that the assassin
would come after him.

As for Braim, he was content to take a
warm shower and take a nap, because all of that excitement and
action had worn him out. Besides, there was that same creeping
feeling of darkness following him again, which he tried his best to
ignore, though he found that nearly impossible at this point.

It was only when Braim lay down on his
bed, however, that he suddenly felt ravenously hungry. It was then
that he also realized that he had actually been hungry all day, but
had forgotten to pay attention to it because he was still getting
used to the desire to eat. When he had been a ghost, after all,
Braim had not needed any sort of food or sustenance to survive at
all.

So Braim sat up and looked around his room
for any food. Unfortunately, he saw nothing edible, so he decided
to contact Mishak, the innkeeper, to have some food delivered up to
his room when, without warning, a plate with a sandwich on it
materialized in his lap.

The sudden appearance of the
sandwich—which had some sort of meat between it that Braim didn't
recognize—caused Braim to knock it off his lap onto the floor. The
plate shattered upon crashing, while the sandwich's bread and meat
scattered.

But nothing bad happened. No one attacked
Braim or anything, though Braim hardly relaxed, because a sandwich
magically materializing in his lap like that had set off his
survival instincts. He would have blasted it with magic if he had
been holding his wand at the time.

“Why did you throw the sandwich onto the
floor?” said a voice above him that caused him to look up. “I
thought you mortals liked sandwiches.”

A familiar, pale face appeared near the
ceiling, followed by an even more familiar armored body with a
ghostly tail. The Ghostly God looked down at Braim with a genuinely
confused expression on his face.

“Wait,” said Braim. He pointed at the
sandwich on the floor that lay amid the broken plate. “
You
made that for me?”

“Yes,” said the Ghostly God. “I confess
that I've never done it before, but if you mortals can do it, then
I can as well, and better, because I am a god.”

“You're joking, right?” said Braim.

“Of course I'm not,” said the Ghostly God.
“Why would I be joking? I was merely trying to help you meet one of
your needs. That you threw my plate off your lap, however, shows
just how little respect you hold for me.”

Braim rubbed the back of his head. “It's
not that I disrespect you, per se. It's that I've kind of been in
danger of being killed by some four-armed freak over the last month
or so and so I'm kind of on edge all the time. You could have at
least warned me ahead of time what you were planning to do.”

The Ghostly God folded his arms across his
chest. “Very well. I guess I … probably should have told you about
it before I gave you the sandwich. It was … not the wisest move I
could have made.”

Braim was under the impression that the
Ghostly God was doing everything within his power to avoid saying
'I made a mistake.' Not that that shocked Braim, seeing as the gods
in general rarely ever admitted to their mistakes, even on minor
issues such as this.

As a result, Braim did not expect to get
an honest admission of error from the Ghostly God, so he changed
the subject. “Why'd you give me a sandwich anyway? I didn't ask for
it.”

“I was merely trying to meet one of your
needs, as I stated before,” said the Ghostly God. “While I
generally dislike serving mortals, you are a godling, which makes
you a little bit more important than other mortals. One day, you
will be one of us. In fact, you might even rule over us. So why
shouldn't I treat you perhaps a bit more kindly than how I normally
treat mortals?”

“Did you deliver sandwiches to the other
godlings?” asked Braim.

“Of course not,” said the Ghostly God.
“What do I look like, a sandwich maker? They can do that on their
own if they get hungry. I am not responsible for meeting their
every want and need, like some kind of
katabans
.”

The Ghostly God said the word
katabans
the same way that Raya would say
peasant
.

“Uh huh,” said Braim. “Let me guess: The
real
reason you tried to feed me is because you needed an
excuse to study me more, right?”

The Ghostly God looked even more offended
than before. “Why would I ever do that?”

“Because I know that you've been trying to
study me for as long as I've been alive again,” said Braim. “You
want to figure out how I came back to life and how you can use that
knowledge to your advantage. Right?”

Braim expected the Ghostly God to deny it,
but to his relief, the Ghostly God nodded and said, “Very well. I
can tell that no amount of deception on my part will convince you
otherwise. Yes, indeed, that is what I came here to do.”

“Sorry, but I can't help you there,” said
Braim, lying back in bed with his hands behind his head. “I know
about as much as anyone else about how I managed to come back to
life. All I remember is stabbing Uron in the Spirit Lands and then
waking up naked in the graveyard outside North Academy. Weird way
to come back to life, but there it is.”

“That is because you are a mortal who
doesn't even remember what your first life was,” said the Ghostly
God. “But I, with my centuries of experience and study of ghosts
and the dead, might be able to understand better how you came back,
if you gave me a chance to study you.”

“Nah,” said Braim. “I'm not interested in
becoming your experiment, sorry. While I'm for the advancement of
magic and all that, I'd rather do it with my freedom intact.”

“Whoever said anything about denying you
your freedom?” said the Ghostly God. “You can still be free, you
know, even if you let me study you.”

“Right,” said Braim. “Are you going to
trick me into becoming your servant for ten years, like you did to
Darek?”