The Darkness Deepens, Chapter 2

The next few days passed quickly for Rhiannon.  Her routine had gotten her to the village that she was searching for on time and without any other delays or problems such as the one in the village where she had met the giant man.

         She arrived in the city of the child’s birth shortly after midday.  There was a lot of activity in there.  Everyone was going about their business.  She even had the pleasure of seeing other elves walking the street.  It did not take her long to locate the cities town hall.  She rode up to it and dismounted.

         As she entered the building her eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness within.  A clerk was sitting behind an old pine desk that has seen better days.

         “What can I do for ya missy?  I don’t have all day ya know.” He addressed her.

         Rhiannon looked around quickly and became aware that she was the only person there.  Suppressing the smile that came to her lips at the clerk’s behavior she asked for the child’s family dwelling by name.

         “Your not from around here are ya?  Everyone knows where the Duke and Duchess leave.  After all it is a damn fortress.  Here, all you have to do is follow the main road till you reach the end of town.  I think you will be able to see the fortress then.  If you can see passed the end of your nose that is…  Let me give you a piece of advice stranger, you can go there, but you better leave the child somewhere else.  The Duchess lost both of hers to the damn Chosen.  She had not been quite right since.”  He eyed her waiting to see if she had any other questions.

         “Thank you for your time and directions, but I am sure I can bring the family something to help easy her pain and perhaps fill their days with love.”  Rhiannon said as she turned to leave.

         “Now won’t that be a nice thing, something to fill ones days with love…hrmp… As if a child so young would know what love is…” he words trailing off as he forgot about her presences and quickly started doing his ledgers again.

         Rhiannon decided that she should ear her fill uniform to the home.  She didn’t want any trouble and the fact was she was going to have a slight problem giving the child up.  She had grown fond of her in the past few days.  After the warning from the clerk she knew it would be better to just force them to let her see the mother and then give the child over to the mother.

         Rhiannon removed the traveling cloak she had been wearing that covered her uniform and mounted her horse.  She didn’t notice the people that stopped what they were doing to stare at her.  Most were simply taking in the beauty of the young elven woman.  A few were drawn to look at her because of the uniform.  And more then a few of the people that stopped and stared had hate in their eyes for what she way.

         It didn’t take long to find the fortress.  She has happy to know that the child’s parents were well off, and titled at that.  She amused herself for a moment with the though that she had carried an heir to the Dukedom all the way here.  That explained to her why the Head Mothers had sent a Chosen.  Again she smiled to herself.  Their wisdom was not always so easy to figure out.

         The child would have a good future.  Strangely enough this made her very happy and made the task of giving up the child that much easier.  She stopped for a moment before she reached the gates to the fortress and looking down at the baby said her goodbyes to it.  She knew once the parents knew their child was back she would not see it again.

         Stealing herself for the moments ahead Rhiannon rode up to the gate.  She didn’t know what she expected her reception to be, but what she got was a cold hard mistrustful stare from the guards.

         “What do you want Chosen, state your business and then be on your way.  Your kind is not welcome here.”  The bigger of the two guards stated.  Rhiannon looked at him strangely, for he was certainly just as much a Chosen as she, but then again he made a point of hiding the studs in his ear by wearing his hair bound instead of wearing it in the war braid that was common to the Chosen, so perhaps his fellows didn’t know.

         “I have come to deliver the girl child back to its mother.  Let me pass and I will be about my business.”  The second guard stepped forward and reached up to check to make sure the baby was real.  He even went so far as to pinch her to make sure she would cry.  And cry the child did.  She screamed her pain, slight as it might have been.  Rhiannon’s face darkened.  Her hand was flexed almost drawing her sword before she even thought about it.

         “Touch the child again and you die scum.  Does your master teach you no manners.  Are you such a man that you must even show a helpless child how great you are?”  Rhiannon said softly.  She knew that the other Chosen heard her and she knew he would know what her hand was doing.  Her eyes cut quickly around searching the area for his link mate.

         “Let her pass Tar.  His Lordship told me to expect someone.  He didn’t think they would actually send a Chosen with the child.”

         Both guards stepped out of her way and she rode into the small court yard.  Before she even had a chance to dismount a man came out of the fortress proper.

         “Let me see my child and where is the other one?” Rhiannon paled at his words, they had not told them about the boy.  Why?  Had the parents not wondered why the child was being returned.  She was not sure what to say, but she didn’t like the look in the man’s eyes.

         “This is your daughter” she said as she un-harness the child from her and passed her down to the man, “Your son is dead.  I am sorry.”

         The man winced as her words as if he had been stuck.  “They did not tell me this in the letter, it is possible that your link-mate has my child, where is your link mate?  Chosen never travel alone.”  The man’s face was turning red and she knew the pain he must be feeling.  To lost a child twice was unbearable.

         “M’Lord, why you didn’t tell me we had a visitor, and what is it that you hold?” A dry wispy voice said from the doors of the fortress.  Rhiannon looked over to see who had spoken.  It was the mother, she was sure.  The woman was old, well passed the age of bearing children.  She had a strange look in her eyes.

         “get back inside, I shall show you later what I hold.  This is no visitor.  Look at her love, she is Chosen.”  The Duke spat the word as if it tasted bad to him.

         Without a word the woman screamed and came running toward Rhiannon and her horse.  Rhiannon dismounted to face her squarely.  She didn’t want to hurt the woman and was afraid that her horse would step on her by accident.

         In an instance the Chosen from the gate was blocking the path of the woman.  He spoke slowly to her as he would an errand child.

         “No, M’Lady you do not want to do this thing.  This Chosen has brought back to you’re your daughter.  Even now the Duke holds her.  Please M’Lady go and care for your child, I shall see this one leaves without bothering you again.”

         “Kyle, Kyle, why yes that is you isn’t Kyle.  Child, what child?”  the Duchess had stopped in front of the Chosen.  She then turned to look at her husband.

         “Helen, your daughter has been returned.  Come and hold her, I think she is hungry, maybe you should go and feed her.”  The Duke said as he handed the child over to the woman.

         Rhiannon’s blood ran cold at the sight.  How could he give a child to her.  The woman was insane.  You could see it in her eyes.  She watched as the Duke herded his wife back inside and sent the Chosen with her to watch over her.  She faced him as he turned back to her.

         “You have not yet answered my question?  Where is your link-mate and my son?"

         “I have no link-mate M’Lord.  Please take your daughter and live in peace.  We shall not bother you again.”  Rhiannon did not like the feel of this, it was not going well at all.  She turned and mounted her horse to leave.  Her job was complete.  She needed to leave before she cried, she was really more attached to the child then she thought.

         “You are blackguard then.  Yes, I see the truth of it by the straightening of your spine.  I should have known they would send a blackguard. Of course they would, after all can’t spare a true Chosen for such lowly duties now can we.  How did my son die?”

         “I don’t know how he died.  It is not my concern.  I have completed my duty.  Your child has been returned and yes, you are welcome for the precise gift I have brought you.” Rhiannon was just before losing her temper, not to mention that the tears were even now brimming in her eyes.  Her heart was breaking at the thought of leaving the child is this harsh loveless place.  She spurred her horse on and left the fortress at a full run.  She did not look back and did not stop at the shouts.  Her job was done and her honor in tact.  She did not have to stay in this man’s house to be insulted and she would not.

         The Duke watched the Chosen leave.  It was as she spurred her horse that the shouts started.  The Duke felt true fear in his gut as he turned and ran back inside the fortress.  He ran straight for his wife’s rooms.

         When he arrived the Chosen elf he had sent up here with his wife stood at the door, blocking the entrance to anyone but the Duke.

         When the Duke looked into his eyes he knew the truth.  The fear he had felt building as he made his way up the stairs rolled over him almost driving him to his knees.

         He looked at the Chosen and asked, “Who else knows? Can we make it seem as if the Chosen bitch brought the child back dead?  We must protect Helen.  You and I both know it is the Chosen who are to blame for this.  They are the ones that took her children and drove her insane.  It is their fault that the children are now dead.  What happen, why didn’t you stop her?”

         The Chosen looked at his employer.  He hid his true reaction to the man.  What did this man know of insanity, or his little pathetic woman.  To lose a child, that was nothing to seeing your link-mate slowly burn to death and not being able to stop it.  He knew the way of things.  The Chosen that had come here was blackguard as well.  It would be a great battle.  The woman and himself.  And at least one of them would get their wish.  Yes, even as he looked at his employer the plans took solid form in his mind.  Maybe, just maybe she would be good enough to end his miserable life.

         “M’Lord, I believe that the child was dead when it was given over to you.  Did you hear it cry, did it move?  I do not think your wife, may the Goddess have mercy on her, did anything to it.  However, I think that this was the final blow for her.  She will need to be watched at all times from now on.  And M’Lord, she will not give over the body of the child.  She is lying on the bed with it and will not allow me to touch her or the child.”

         The Duke shook his head.  He could not and would not allow his wife to be lost to him as well.  The Chosen had already cost him both of his children.  He could not stand to lose his wife as well.  He knew deep in his heart that the man before him was lying to him for the first time.  But he simply did not have the nerve to call him a liar to his face.  And the blackguard had suggested to him the perfect scapegoat for this mess.  He knew his wife had killed the child, and he grieved for it.  But quite simply he would not allow his poor wife to be executed for murder or lock away in an asylum for the mental ill.  He would keep her here as he had done since they had taken the children.  The Chosen would take the blame.

         “Your right now that I think about it.  I don’t remember the child moving when I took her from the Chosen.  She was warm, but then she had been pressed against the woman’s body.  Why?  I don’t understand why anyone would wish to harm the Duchess any more then she already has been.  No matter now.  The deed is done.  Hunt down that blackguard and bring her back to me.  She will stand charged with murder.”

         The gleam in the blackguard eyes told the Duke everything he needed to know.  The blackguard had found his way out of his own personal living hell.  Or so he hoped.  In a strange way the blackguard was going to go out with honor as well.  He had been honor-bond to the Duchess and now he was going to pit himself against the most dangerous of opponent, another Chosen.  The Duke slowly walked into the Duchess bedroom and his heart broke yet again to see his once lovely wife lying on the bed slowing rocking the corpse back and forth, cooing to it as if it were alive.  It seemed to him it had been a hundred years and more.  His once beautiful wife was now a hag.  Her lovely hair had been torn from her head in spots.  He had fought he to make her stop, even had to strike her on occasion.  He had never hit her before that.  He had never wanted to.  Now as he looked at her he could still see the spots where she had pulled her hair out in grief.  He could even see the fresh pink scars on her wrist where she had cut them just three weeks ago.  The Duke knew a moment of doubt, he almost stepped out to call the blackguard back to stop the madness that was going to surely follow.  But then his hate swelled in him, filling him.  The hate of the Chosen.  Chosen, one word that would forever describe to him the very core of evil.  After all only evil would have taken everything that was right and good in his life and destroyed it.  He no longer had a family.  His children were dead and his wife insane.  He allowed the hatred to build in him, when he stepped forward to make his wife give up her gruesome play toy the hatred had blacken his heart forever.