Triumphant Chorus - Chapter 1 - Part 1

Chapter 1 - Part 1

With a tight, unhappy sigh, Keldian Raith, Cleric of the Choir and one of the most powerful and influential people in the entire Delgathan city-state, clasped his hands behind his back so he didn't find himself gnawing on a nail in worry - again.

From his vantage point, a carved and sculpted balcony high on the flank of the Temple Tower, he had a truly glorious view out over the sun-touched roofs and streets of the city laid out below him... and depressingly little to block his ability to see the still smouldering crater that had, until yesterday, been one of the Temple's main records repositories.

Luckily, whatever accursed device the rebels had managed to smuggle into the city had been limited enough in its scope to leave the surrounding buildings effectively untouched. That had let the repository's destruction result in nothing but bumps, bruises, and a fair few sets of soiled underwear amongst the citizens who'd been in the area when the thing had detonated.

Less fortunately, the contained nature of the explosion had done little to save anything inside the device's effects, and there was no denying that the damage had been... thorough. Not to mention total, leaving little more than scattered dust and embers in its wake.

Keldian's lips thinned at the thought of just how poorly it reflected on the Temple Guard that they'd been able to catch no hint at all that an attack such as this had been in the offing, and as for finding those responsible...?

The bastards are just too damned good at hiding in the crowd.

It wasn't a pleasant admission, but it was an honest one, and in many ways cut right to the heart of the problem the Temple had seen growing over the last few years, no matter how hard they tried to quell it.

And we can't even do what we know needs to be done to cut this rebellion out, he thought sourly. Not without turning even more of the populous to their side.

The Spirits knew they'd tried near enough everything else, but somehow every attempt to do serious damage to the insurgents had netted nothing significant in terms of results. Another little detail that happened to nag at him whenever he let it, that one. He just couldn't make himself dismiss the suspicion that it pricked to life in the back of his mind, the suspicion that someone, somewhere, in the Temple's ranks was feeding the rebels the information they needed to stay one step ahead.

Still, they'd not met with total failure, and if the Guard hadn't found anyone they could tie to yesterday's little bit of magical annihilation, they had managed to lay their hands on some others that they could prove where amongst the ranks of those who defied the Temple's rule.

And as far as he was concerned, the Spirits deserved every scrap of thanks he could muster for that - and not just because of the steps toward Delgatha's physical security it represented. Fortune had smiled on them in other ways as well, and a Spirits-sent opportunity to help prop up the mystical side of things had also dropped into their laps.

And it was just as well, given the fact that one of the Choir was so very close to failing. Keldian didn't want to think too much about the headaches that would have been involved in finding someone to take the Chorister's place...

Luckily, it seems I don't have to ask someone to sacrifice themselves after all. Though I wish I could make myself believe that the volunteer we now have isn't doing it just to spite us all.

Something he'd have found easier if he hadn't known the volunteer in question, and well enough that the evidence of her seditious activities had barely come as a surprise.

On the other hand, the fact she'd offered herself to the Choir hadn't exactly been a shock either, when he thought about it. If anything, that was part of the damned problem with these rebels - they were just as, if not more, committed to the Spirits than many of the Temple's own clergy sometimes felt themselves to be.

No, it wasn't their beliefs that were the problem. Unless, of course, one counted their belief that the Temple should be firmly ousted from its position of authority over Delgatha and its people. Not exactly a trivial point, that one.

"Your Eminence?" a voice sounded behind him, sounding just as respectful as it should given that it was interrupting what Keldian hoped he could pass off as his meditations.

Turning, he acknowledged the acolyte who'd spoken with a suitably regal nod, and the young man stepped through the doorway and out onto the balcony proper, his hands folded in front of him and his gaze properly downcast. "The augurs say it is time, Your Eminence."

Keldian nodded again, this time far more pensively. If it was time, it was time... and he supposed that if nothing else, at least in a short while, he wouldn't have to worry about the Choir's stability any more.

Until the next time, of course.

"Very well," he said calmly. "If the augurs have spoken, then I suppose we have no excuse to delay."

The acolyte said nothing, merely bowing his head, and Keldian swept past him and out of the sun's radiance. The chill that shivered through him as his eyes accustomed themselves to the lamplit interior was something he wanted to put down to the fact that it was also cooler inside... but somehow, he couldn't manage it. Not when he knew full well what he was on his way to officiate over.

The walk to the Hosting Chamber wasn't a long one, and he was thankful for that. A shorter trip meant less time to brood, and when he crossed the threshold into the Chamber itself, he had far more important things to occupy his mind than mere worldly concerns.

Pausing just inside the large, almost cavernous space, he ran a critical eye over the structure in the centre of the room, checking for any hint of a flaw in the eerie glow given off my the network of enchanted steel that made up the cage.

Not that they called it that, of course. Not out loud. 'Cage' was hardly a fitting term for the means used to keep a Chorister from harming themselves or others as their hold over themselves weakened - even if it was totally accurate in every other possible way.

Satisfied that they weren't in imminent danger of the Vessel - which he'd always thought was an insufferably pompous name for it - failing, he turned his attention to what it contained.

Unlike some of the Choir, it was actually fairly easy to tell that the figure prowling restlessly around its confinement had once been a human being. Very little had really changed about his outward form, which was actually one of the reasons it as so hard to predict when this particular member of the Choir needed a new host. With others, it was a simple matter of watching for the point when all pretence of humanity disappeared, but in this case it wasn't so simple.

Twisted and deformed by its role as it was, the figure in the cage was still far easier on the eye than it could have been, though Keldian suspected that might have been due to some of the less visible changed the man had undergone since he'd taken the Spirit into himself. This one had a tendency to warp the perceptions of those around it, if it felt the need - or whim - to do so, and somehow the inhuman shape the Chorister had grown into was far more appealing that it had any right to be.

A final glance around the Chamber showed everyone that was meant to be here already in their places, busy attending to the preparations that needed to be made. Or almost everyone, at least. It seemed he'd gotten here before the most critically important participant.

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not", he muttered to himself, then shook his head and waved away the curious look the acolyte beside him sent his way. "Just an old man's musings," he assured the youngster, giving him a fatherly smile as he moved further into the room.

The move attracted attention from those already there, and a couple of the acolytes paused in their preparations to offer respectful bows. He returned them with gracious nods that masked how little he wanted to be here, and wished that the being inside the vessel's confines had carried on ignoring his presence. It didn't, and Keldian was acutely aware of the way he could practically feel the Chorister's eyes on him.

How long the pair of them stood looking at each other, his eyes meeting the flat blackness of the Chorister's, he wasn't sure... but it was long enough for him to be grateful for the polite cough the acolyte accompanying him gave.

With deliberate casualness, he dragged his gaze away from the confined creature and looked at the young man beside him. The acolyte gestured subtly toward the Chamber doorway, and Keldian held back a sigh when he saw who was coming through it.

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With a haughty air that made the quartet of armed guards escorting her seem nothing more than servants, Ilris stepped into the Chamber with no sign at all of the nervousness that scrawled inside her gut. Twenty years as a Temple scholar had cured her of any temptation to see any of what surrounded her as worthy of reverence, but there was no denying that there was something inherently powerful about the scene.

And not just because of the magical energy invested in keeping everything - and everyone - in their place inside this grand space.

The bindings holding her wrists before her meant she couldn't do anything about the stray strands of dark hair that had escaped the rough ponytail the rest was pulled back into, but that was fine. She wasn't here to look pretty, but to do a job... Two, actually, if you counted the one these clerical idiots thought she'd volunteered for.

Not that she counted making sure Delgata was protected as a trivial thing to do. It just wasn't the only reason she'd volunteered to undergo the ritual that lay before her.

Avoiding getting hung also helps, she thought to herself wryly. Assuming they decided to be that nice to me, given what I was arrested for.

A hand clamped onto her arm, pulling her to a halt with a distinct lack of gentleness, but she ignored its owner in favour of someone else. Eyes as dark as her hair locked onto the richly-robed form of a man she'd once considered more than a friend, and she made no effort to hide the disdainful curl that twisted her lips into a faint sneer.

"Hello, Ilris," Kedlian said softly, almost as if he wasn't sure what else he was supposed to say. For a long moment, she simply stared at him in silence, then rather blatantly failed to show any of the deference his exalted position warranted. Instead, she shifted her attention to the tangles mesh of steel that lay in the centre of the Chamber - and what prowled around inside.

Whoever the man had been, he was almost completely gone now. In his place, the Spirit-wrought form of what he played host to seemed to sense the touch of her gaze, and it went utterly still. Slowly, it turned her way, studying her in turn, but Ilris was too busy swallowing on a suddenly dry throat to really notice.

A man's body was never as perfect as the one that she was looking at, and that very perfection was... unsettling. Grace beyond anything a mere mortal could manage filled its movements, and the long, flowing mane of golden hair seemed to ripple faintly in a breeze that nobody else could feel. Even from here, she could see the hunger that lay behind the totally black eyes the Chorister aimed her way, and she had to force herself to tear her own away from them.

Something that left her free to take in one of the other unsettling features the ex-man displayed. Rather proudly, in fact, given the way it hung between sleek, smooth legs. Ilris was no stranger to the male anatomy, but even idle as it was, that thing was of a grander scale than any she'd ever even heard of, even when erect. For a moment, she wondered if it was even physically possible for a normal female to be able to accommodate such a thing...

Licking her lips in a sudden flash of nerves, she blinked as the Chorister did the same... only that tongue was unnaturally long, coiling with almost nauseating flexibility as it parodied her own actions.

"Why, Ilris," Keldian asked softly, dragging her attention back to him. "Will you tell me that? Why throw away everything your position in the Temple gave you? What could possibly have driven you to join the ranks of those wanting to tear down everything the clergy have built?"

"The fact you have to ask that shows you'd never understand the answer," she said back, cool, distant, and dismissive. She sensed a sudden movement from behind her, but a sharp shake of Keldian's head stopped whatever the guard had been planning to do in response to her rudeness in its tracks.

"Was it some crisis of faith? Something that made you question your belief in the Spirits?"

"My faith?" Ilris asked, honestly surprised that he simply didn't seem able to get why she might have rejected her place in the corrupt, self-serving edifice the Temple had become. "My faith is fine. If I could say the same of yours, you would be the one standing where I am, wouldn't you... priest."

She put every scrap of venom she could muster into that last word, and she had the satisfaction of seeing Keldian flinch slightly from it. He didn't deny it, though, which was something of a surprise. Or maybe it wasn't... he'd never seemed as prone to self-delusion as his peers, which is why some amongst the rebellion had thought that just maybe he might be willing to listen to them.

Ilris had known better, though. He was too wedded to the power and privilege of his position. Which was probably, she thought with only a trace of the bitterness the idea had once carried with it, why he'd not wedded her.

With a sigh, he nodded and stepped back, smoothing the front of his robe with one hand as he squared his shoulders and assumed the authoritarian mask of the high clergy.

"Very well. Ilris Cessein, do you understand the nature of the service you offer yourself to?"

Smiling faintly, she considered telling him where he could stuff the formal phrasing of the ritual that he was setting in motion. Personally satisfying as it might have been, it wouldn't actually help however, so she simply nodded.

"Preserving our home requires great sacrifice. You are not the first to accept that burden, nor the last."

One of the guards stepped around to face her, one hand dropping to his waist to draw a keen-edged knife from his belt. She held her hands out to him, and without a word he slipped the blade between her wrists and sliced the bindings away.

Continued in Part 2

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