The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (24 page)

"Make yourselves as comfortable as you are
able. Before we search these bags for something that is not yet too
rotten to eat, there are a number of pressing matters that must be
discussed," Desmeres announced.

"There most certainly are," Myranda
agreed.

"Foremost, this is not a halfway house for
wayward wanderers, and Lain and I are not caretakers. It is long
past time that each of us went our separate ways," Desmeres
stated.

"Lain is Chosen and I will not leave until he
has joined with the others of his kind and turned to the task at
hand," Myranda declared once again.

"Yes, that has been established, but--"
Desmeres began. The voice of the woman cut him off.

"There are no others of our kind," she
remarked.

"What? No. There are five!" Myranda
objected.

"There had been, but the enemy has been most
thorough. We two are all that remain who may call ourselves Chosen.
It is thus of the utmost importance that we be delayed no further.
Each moment the forces against us grow more powerful. Where once
victory was assured, now it shall be a costly endeavor, if it is
even an achievable one. We alone shall not be able to quell the
storm we are certain to bring upon this world through our actions.
The death throws of the war may well make its final days bloodier
than the decades that preceded it," she said.

Her cold tone was maddening. If what she said
was so, then, if victory was possible, it may well cost more lives
than it would save. The possibility had haunted Myranda. There was
already evidence that as the fiends who controlled the Alliance
Army grew more concerned, their actions grew more drastic. Their
soldiers permeated the north. With the nearmen to consider there
was likely two warriors for every civilian. If they were to seek
the death of the Chosen at all costs, the devastation would be
complete, even if the soldiers of the south did not sweep in to
take the land they had been fighting for. Somehow Myranda had
managed to convince herself that when the five were united they
would be able to prevent this. Now a being better suited than
anyone to know the truth announced that such a miracle would not
come to pass. She wrestled with the implications.

"How? How can you know? How can you be sure?"
Myranda demanded.

"I have spent centuries in a state of global
awareness. I spread my mind to the far ends of the world with the
sole aim of locating the other divinely gifted beings when they
arose. Four beside myself surfaced. The murk and haze of time and
space have since swallowed three again," she answered.

"Did you see them die?" Myranda asked.

"I grow weary of your questions. I spoke in
hopes of dissuading you from your stated purpose. I have no
interest in addressing the depths of your ignorance," she said.

"Perhaps you simply lost sight of them!
Perhaps they still exist but have escaped your notice!" Myranda
said.

"
Nothing
escapes my notice," the being
fumed.

Behind her, Desmeres smirked at the
remark.

"I will find them. There is still hope,"
Myranda resigned.

"Hope is a lie. Hope exists only for those
who do not know the truth. For the truly intelligent there exists
only certainty. Who do you think you are, human, to even suppose
that you might contradict a being such as I? I who have existed
since the first whispers of eternity. I who am among the first
masterpieces wrought by the gods," the being spoke. Strong emotion
flavored her words as she progressed, but she endeavored to appear
as cold as she had been.

"Fate led me to you. Fate led me to Lain.
Fate led me to the fallen swordsman. Fate gave me this!" Myranda
cried, throwing down her staff and opening her scarred palm. "Fate
has a place for me. Fate has given me a purpose."

The being lashed out, grasping Myranda's
wrist and twisting it painfully to gain a better view of the
afflicted hand.

"Blasphemy. Sacrilege. It is far better that
I relieve you of this limb than allow the symbol of divine purpose
to be squandered on so lowly a creature," she said, the malice of
her words seeping through her cold exterior. As she spoke, the grip
grew tighter, the twist more cruel.

Myranda dropped to her knees. Myn leapt to
her side, baring her teeth. The young woman turned her eyes to the
emotionless stare of the shape shifter. Slowly the mark upon her
forehead, the very one she now punished Myranda for bearing, began
to reveal itself. It had only been present when she was in one of
the elemental forms until now. An instant before the enraged dragon
would have attacked her, the being relented. She rubbed her own
mark, her face revealing a glimmer of confusion and pain ever so
briefly before her expression and the mark each faded to
nothing.

"You are not worth the effort," the being
decided. "That mark speaks nothing of purpose. It merely labels you
as a curiosity. If anything you are a mistake, a failed attempt at
greatness. The spirit of my fallen would-be partner, the swordsman
as you called him, must have branded you as a message of his
defeat. With that message delivered your brief, pointless role is
fulfilled. I was quite aware of his passing."

"Because nothing escapes your notice,"
Desmeres repeated.

"Precisely," the creature agreed.

Myranda held her aching wrist and stood.

"How can the powers that be have made such
mistakes? How can the very beings created and selected to protect
the people of this world care so little about them?" Myranda
asked.

"Emotion is weakness. It sensitizes you to
the trivial and blinds you to the important. Only in detachment can
decisions be made clearly. Only in solitude can all efforts be
directed to the appropriate ends," the shape shifter recited like a
mantra.

"Why do you even seek to save this world if
you do not care about the people in it?" Myranda asked.

"It is not a matter of desire. It is a matter
of purpose. Purpose is the rarest thing in the world. Few beings
will ever be given a true purpose for existing. Fewer still will
achieve it. I was placed here to perform a task of which I am
uniquely capable, and so I shall do it," she answered.

"What of the others who share the purpose?
Isn't it your duty to be sure of their fate. Isn't it your
obligation to find them if you can?" Myranda countered.

"It is not your place to question my
decisions or interpret my role," she said.

The debate continued for the better part of
an hour. The shape shifter, once unwilling to acknowledge Myranda's
presence, was now determined to put the girl in her place. For
Myranda, all of the confusion and disappointment caused by having
her illusions of the heroes that would rescue the world dashed now
had a target. Desmeres sat in quiet amusement as they argued. Myn
was mindful of the shape shifter. Unlike in Myranda and Lain's
spats, here there was a clear enemy. Many times the Chosen motioned
as though she would strike the girl, but each time she held herself
back. The creature mostly maintained her composure, but
occasionally her anger would flare. Such bursts were brief, but
notable. The ground would rumble in sympathy to her anger, and
rushing winds could be heard even through the thick earth roof of
the storeroom. The argument had not yet begun to subside when the
sound of Myn clawing at one of the walls drew Myranda's attention.
She approached the dragon and tried to find out what was the
matter. The corner of the room she was in was pitch black.

"There, You see. You cannot ignore the plight
of the lizard long enough to finish your pathetic point," the
shifter remarked smugly.

"What is wrong?" Myranda said, ignoring the
attack.

"It would appear something didn't escape her
notice," Desmeres said, the constant grin widening.

"What . . . Lain. Where is Lain?" Myranda
demanded.

The shifter glanced casually about to
discover that the malthrope was indeed missing.

"I actually thought it was going to be
difficult. I was confident that I could distract you, Myranda, but
the newcomer was going to be tricky, and the dragon would have been
next to impossible. Fortunately for me, you two turned on each
other. He snuffed out the candle a moment before our latest ally
first claimed that nothing escapes her notice. When she grabbed
your wrist Lain made his escape. I suppose what she says is true.
Emotion does blind you," Desmeres said, pulling open a sack hanging
beside him and retrieving a heavily smoked piece of meat.

"The hatch never opened. I would have seen
it," Myranda said.

"That may well be so, but then, Myn isn't
clawing at the hatch, is she," Desmeres pointed out.

Myranda lit the candle again with a swift
spell and investigated the wall. Before long she found where a
secret handle was recessed. When she reached for it, Desmeres
stopped her.

"I wouldn't. Not yet. You see, in case you
haven't noticed, we make it a habit to trap all entrances and
exits," he warned, chewing the leathery meal.

She turned impatiently to him.

"Here is what is going to happen," he began.
"You and the shape shifter are going to go off and attempt to find
Lain. She may succeed, but you will not."

"I have found him many times before," Myranda
said.

"You may find this difficult to believe, but
until now if you have found him, it is because he wanted you to.
Because of the uniqueness of the situation, Lain was able to use
himself as the bait to his own trap. Think about it. How have you
found him before? The tooth? As you may have noticed, or more
disturbingly, as you may not have noticed, that little keepsake
went missing from your bag at about the same time as the book you
borrowed. Lain wanted you to keep it as a memento, but such an item
is a shade too dangerous to us to remain in general circulation.
All you have left is Myn. I'll admit, she would be a great help,
but Lain above any other is savvy at disguising his scent. So you
will leave and you will search and when you realize the futility
you will try to find me. You will fail there as well. Finally you
may choose to search for the shape shifter. I doubt you will be met
with any more success there either. And so your days will be spent
in fruitless wandering, much as they had before, until you abandon
this quest you have imagined for yourself. I don't say this to
dishearten you or to dissuade you. I say it because you are a woman
of great potential and the world deserves better than to have such
a life squandered," he said.

"The world deserves a future, and if Lain
cannot be turned to his task it will not have one," Myranda
raged.

The shape shifter allowed a hint of a grin
show itself.

"Why aren't you furious?" Myranda
demanded.

"Lain has illustrated that he is not so
deeply altered by his time among you as I had first supposed. He
has abandoned both of you. To locate him shall be a simple task,
and without mortals to slow us, we shall strike down this threat at
its roots soon enough," she said.

"You know I am half elf, and thus only
semi-mortal," Desmeres reminded her, more in an attempt to irritate
her than anything else.

The shape shifter moved dutifully toward the
small panel that acted as a door for the hidden exit and forced Myn
aside. Desmeres quickly motioned that Myranda restrain the dragon.
She just managed to do so before the door was forced open,
prompting the same burst of hisses that had accompanied the opening
of the surface hatch. The arm that had pushed the panel was now
perforated with more than a dozen tiny needles. The shape shifter
slowly withdrew and analyzed the arm.

"Pathetic," she declared as she shifted
swiftly to wind, scattering the needles dangerously in all
directions.

As Myranda dove for cover, the shape shifter
swirled through the hatch and after Lain. Myranda quickly climbed
to her feet to follow.

"Wait," Desmeres requested.

"You have stalled me long enough," she
said.

The dragon vanished into the narrow tunnel
beyond the hidden hatch. Myranda started to sidle along after
her.

"You are right. I
have
stalled you
long enough. By now even if you knew precisely where Lain went,
which you don't, and even if he were standing still, which he
isn't, you would either have to sprout wings or have a
very
fast horse to even hope to reach him inside of a few hours. A few
minutes now will make no difference at all. However, if you will
listen to what I have to say, a few minutes may well make all of
the difference," he said.

"Go Myn. Make a trail I can follow," Myranda
said.

She scarcely had to finish her sentence
before the little dragon was out of sight. Myranda squeezed back
out of the opening.

"Say your piece," she said.

"First, I would like to give you one last
chance to make the correct decision," he said.

"And what might that be?" she asked
sternly.

"Join us," he said.

Myranda turned to leave again.

"It is the only sure way to see Lain again,"
he said.

"I notice you didn't court the Chosen One for
such a position," Myranda said.

"I had thought of it, but she is even more
single-minded than you, not to mention that, despite being uniquely
suited to stealth, she can hardly list subtlety among her many
virtues. No, you are a far better choice. You have already revealed
yourself to be an able negotiator, and you are quite capable of
playing a role when properly instructed. Our clientele would be far
more willing to confide in a woman. There are countless reasons.
For you, there is the possibility for security, contact with Lain,
and, not that you care, enormous profit," he said.

"I will not help you kill people," she
said.

"If you must simplify it so, then why not
view your own cause from the same point of view? What do you
suppose Lain will have to do if you finally convince him to end the
war? A great many very important people will have to die to cripple
either army. Unless you suppose that Lain will turn to diplomacy.
And no level of care taken will prevent the chaos of the war's end
from claiming at least a few innocent lives," he said.