Gathering of the Chosen (4 page)

“So you are the Ghostly God, then,” said
Malock, looking up at the god with curiosity. “Jenur told me about
you in a letter she sent to me recently.”

“And you are King Malock,” said the
Ghostly God, “the first mortal to reach World's End and live, if I
am not mistaken.”

“My crew and I in my youth, yes,” said
Malock, nodding, though he didn't sound happy about it. “But we
never visited your island on our voyage.”

“That is because my island is not along
the route that your crew took to reach World's End,” the Ghostly
God said. Then he looked at Braim, despite Braim's best efforts to
not draw the deity's attention to himself, and said, “Greetings,
Braim. How have you been recently?”

“Fine,” said Braim, as tersely as he
could. “Is it time for us to go in now?”

“Straight to the point, I see,” the
Ghostly God said. “Anyway, yes, it is. In fact, I came out here in
order to tell you all that you may now enter the main chamber.
After all, that is what you are here for.”

The Ghostly God gestured toward the doors
at the end of the room, which then swung open on their own. It was
hard to see what lay beyond the doors, however, due to the fact
that Braim stood on the opposite end of the lobby from them.

“Any special instructions or orders we
should be aware of before we go inside?” said Darek.

“Simply step through the open doorway,”
said the Ghostly God, waving one hand in the direction of the
doors, “where you will shortly hear the most important announcement
that any of you have heard in a long time.”

With that, the Ghostly God vanished. Braim
looked around to see where the god had gone, but he was nowhere to
be seen. Still, Braim felt like he was being watched by an unseen
individual, as if the Ghostly God had simply turned invisible
rather than vanish into thin air.

King Malock, on the other hand, didn't
seem to notice or care. He simply began walking toward the doors,
with Hana and Raya by his side, followed by Yorak and Auratus.
Jenur and Darek then took after them, so Braim walked to join them
as well. He was glad he was at the back of the group. He had a
feeling that the other gods would be interested in him as well, and
right now he didn't want to be the center of attention of the
gods.

When they all stepped through the doors,
Braim looked up at their surroundings to see what the chamber they
had stepped into looked like.

The Throne Room of the Gods was a massive
chamber, much bigger than any room that Braim had ever been in (not
that that was saying much, considering how little he remembered of
his past life). The room was as wide-open as a field, with a sandy
floor and a huge crystal glass dome above, the same dome that Braim
had noticed earlier. The dome was so clear that it was like
standing outside, and if Braim hadn't know any better, he would
have said that there was no dome at all, that the chamber was just
open to the blue skies above.

All around the perimeter of the room stood
hundreds if not thousands of thrones at varying heights. Upon each
throne sat a different god or goddess, all of them talking to each
other, the combined volume of their voices almost deafening. As far
as Braim could tell, every god in the Northern and Southern
Pantheons was present, which was impressive, because it was rare
for them all to be in one place like this.

For example, Braim saw the Ghostly God
taking a seat next to Ranama, the God of Language, who was one of
the other gods that Braim had met shortly after his resurrection.
Ranama was recognizable due to his tentacle beard, his glasses that
showed two intelligent blue eyes behind them, and the book hanging
off his neck. He was currently reading the book, so absorbed in it
that he barely paid any attention to the argument between two gods
that Braim didn't recognize occurring next to him.

Seeing so many gods and goddesses in one
place was an exhilarating experience, especially as a mage, because
Braim could feel their power even more so than most non-mages. Yet
there was also a deep sense of worry and terror, as if all of the
deities gathered here today were trying to avoid focusing on some
uncomfortable event that just happened recently.

In fact, Braim noticed how all of the gods
and goddesses were pointedly avoiding looking at the massive throne
on the opposite end of the Throne Room from him and his friends.
While it wasn't the only empty throne in the room (Braim spotted
one near Nimiko, the God of Light), it was the largest and most
obvious of them.

Braim understood why they were looking
away from it, of course. That had to be the throne of Skimif, the
previous God of Martir, who had died during Uron's attempt to
destroy Martir. The other deities were probably avoiding looking at
it because it reminded them of Skimif, whose death had affected
everyone on Martir in some way or another.

Then Braim noticed Malock leaning on his
cane and staring at the empty throne. It was like Malock was
looking at the coffin of a dead friend, which made Braim wonder if
the King had once known Skimif prior to his death.

As for the others, they were reacting to
the presence of so many gods in one place in different ways. Both
Jenur and Hana looked at ease, probably because they had been here
before, while Darek, Auratus, Yorak, and Raya were looking around
like they could not believe what they were seeing. Darek in
particular looked excited about seeing so many gods in one place,
while Raya seemed rather put off by it.

It was then that the Ghostly God
reappeared next to them, quite without warning, and said, “Oh, yes.
I almost forgot. You mortals should be up on the balcony, not down
here. Silly me.”

The Ghostly God snapped his fingers. A
second later, Braim and the others no longer stood on the sandy
floor of the Throne Room. Instead, they stood on a balcony well
above the thrones of the gods, which gave them a bird's eye view of
the entire chamber. The sudden teleportation made Braim feel a
little woozy, but he recovered quickly enough and ran over to the
railing to look down.

“Wow,” said Braim. “We're up high.”

He looked over his shoulder at the others.
Most of them seemed to handle the teleportation fairly well, except
for Darek, whose face was vaguely green and whose hands were on his
stomach. Braim recalled that Darek didn't react to heights very
well, though Darek was already waving his wand over his stomach,
probably applying a healing spell to keep himself from getting too
sick.

The others joined Braim at the balcony's
railing, looking down at the gods below. Braim noticed that some of
the gods were looking up at them. Or rather, they were looking up
at
him
. He saw one goddess—who resembled a little girl with
mismatched clothes—watching him with curious eyes, while another
one, a woman made of water, was also looking up at him, although
she seemed less curious and more annoyed at the presence of so many
mortals in the Throne Room of the Gods.

Then Princess Raya leaned against the
railing to Braim's right, saying, “Are they going to make the
announcement soon? I'm getting
so
bored.”

“Don't worry, Raya, I am certain it will
be soon,” said Malock. “While the gods can sometimes be very slow,
I was given the impression that this was going to be quick and to
the point.”

“All right, Father,” said Raya, though she
didn't sound convinced. “But how much longer, do you think, will we
have to wait?”

Malock opened his mouth to say something,
but then Jenur—who had been watching the gods below—suddenly
pointed at Skimif's empty throne. “What's that?”

Braim looked down at the empty throne. A
single ball of light glowed over the throne's seat. In fact, it was
growing bright enough to attract the attention of every deity in
the room. All conversation died out as the light grew brighter and
brighter, before suddenly dimming and then vanishing out right,
giving Braim a clear view of the throne, which was no longer
empty.

Two beings stood on the throne now. One of
them was a skeleton wearing auburn robes and carrying a wand of
crystal and gold, with a magic stone wrapped around his upper right
forearm. Braim recognized the skeleton as the Mysterious One, a
powerful entity from the Spirit Lands who had pretended to be the
God of Mystery and Magic for many years, but had since returned to
the Spirit Lands in order to lead it. Even though it had only been
two months since Braim had last seen the Mysterious One, it felt
like it had been much longer.

As for the second being, she was a woman
who wore thick, severe-looking glasses and carried a thick tome
against her chest, but Braim couldn't read the tome's title because
it wasn't facing him. She wore a shapeless a silver robe and her
hair was tied in a bun. She could have been pretty if she didn't
look so judgmental.

“Father, who is that?” said Raya, pointing
at the woman standing next to the Mysterious One, who was now eying
the gods with a rather judgmental glare. “Another goddess? I don't
remember Teacher telling me about that one.”

Malock leaned forward over the railing,
though not too far. He squinted his old eyes, then shrugged. “I do
not know. I have never seen her before. Hana, do you know her?”

“No,” said Hana, shaking her head. “But I
don't like the look of her one bit.”

A cursory glance of the other four told
Braim that none of the others knew the woman, either. That made
Braim wonder if she was even from Martir at all.

Darek pointed at the robed skeleton. “Hey,
I think that's the Mysterious One. Was his mission to find the
Powers successful after all?”

Braim wasn't sure. According to Darek, the
Mysterious One had promised to contact the Powers—that mysterious
group of entities that had created all of Martir—to get replacement
gods for the deities slain by Uron. That had been two months ago,
but Braim had thought that the Mysterious One had given up
searching for the Powers well before then, seeing as they had not
heard from the Mysterious One since the day he made that promise to
them.

“Perhaps he found them after all,” said
Jenur. She sighed in relief. “Thank the Powers.”

“But if that's the case, then why did he
bring that one woman with him?” said Yorak. “Is she the new Goddess
of Martir? But what about the other four deities we lost?”

“Shh,” said Hana, holding one finger up to
her lips. “Listen. The Mysterious One is talking.”

Hana was right. The Mysterious One was
talking. In fact, he sounded like he was standing right next to
Braim, even though the Mysterious One was all the way below him on
the other side of the room. The Mysterious One was probably using
magic to amplify his voice, but whether he was or wasn't, Braim
listened intently.

“Welcome, gods, mortals, and katabans,”
said the Mysterious One, waving at everyone. “I am pleased to see
all of you today. I was worried that I might not return in time to
help, but it seems that Martir is still functioning even with some
of its gods dead. That is good, but Martir still needs both the
Northern and Southern Pantheon complete if it is to survive and
function as the Powers intended.”

Braim wondered if that was part of the
reason he felt so off. One of the gods that had died by Uron's
hands was a deity known as the Human God, the God of Humans. Braim
had not noticed any negative effects toward humans as a result of
the Human God's death, but he supposed that the creeping depression
that struck him at random might have been partly a result of that
god's death (even though he himself had been dead when the Human
God died).

“It took me sometime, but I finally
succeeded in tracking down the Powers,” said the Mysterious One. He
lay one bony hand on the woman's shoulder. “And the Powers agreed
to give Martir new gods to replace the ones killed by Uron. My
mission, I am happy to say, was a success.”

Darek shared a fist bump with Auratus,
while Jenur, Yorak, Malock, and Hana sighed with relief. Raya,
meanwhile, yawned, as if it the Mysterious One had simply announced
today's weather. Braim didn't understand that at all, seeing as
this was easily the most important piece of news that Braim and
everyone else had heard in years.

“I spoke with the Powers and explained to
them the situation,” said the Mysterious One. He then patted the
woman standing next to him on the shoulder. “And this was their
solution.”

“What?” rang out the harsh voice of one of
the gods, the source of which Braim quickly located: A short,
green-skinned man with vines for hair and red eyes. “An uptight
woman with bad eyesight? How, pray tell, O Mysterious One, is she
going to help us? Is she going to scold us for not being
well-behaved, maybe threaten to give us a time-out if we don't
listen to her like children?”

That lone god's harsh words caused several
of the other gods to snicker. Raya actually smirked at the god's
words, while Malock glared at that god as if he could cause him to
spontaneously erupt into fire by sheer force of will alone. While
Braim agreed that the joke was rather tasteless, he thought that
Malock had to have some sort of grudge against him, based on how
harshly he glared at the god.

The Mysterious One, to his credit, didn't
look disturbed at all by the god's joke. He opened his mouth to
speak, but then the glasses-wearing woman held up a hand. Much to
Braim's surprise, the Mysterious One closed his mouth and gestured
for her to speak instead.

The woman adjusted her glasses and then,
focusing on the god, said, “You are the Loner God, the God of
Solitude, the Jungle, and Animals, correct?”

“Yep,” said the deity, who still chuckled
at his own joke every now and then. “That's me, though I don't know
how you found out my name, seeing as I haven't even introduced
myself yet.”