Read Online Chosen Ones by Alister E. McGrath - Free Book Online Page B

not the woman who had held her as she wept!
    Simeon cleared his throat. “Some months ago,” he said, “a few of our number escaped. The lords took our children—al our children. They’re being held. We don’t know where, we don’t know for how long…” His voice broke. “We only know that they’l be kil ed if we try to escape.”
    Julia felt herself go very, very pale.
    “Your children?” she whispered. “So that’s why it was so quiet in the streets…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered the silent rows of houses outside the castle.
    Simeon knelt in front of her, one knee pressed to the cold stone floor. He reached out and took Julia’s chin in his hand, studying her face. She met his gaze, feeling once more the sharp sting of tears in her eyes.
    “You’ve been cal ed here, Julia,” he said.
    “Cal ed to help deliver our children and restore this land to the paradise the Lord of Hosts always intended it to be.”
    “The Lord…” Julia repeated, confused.
    “One greater than Marcus,” said Simeon—the same words that Gaius had used in the garden. “It is a name we have been forbidden ever to mention on this island, on pain of death. It is a name that was daily on our lips in Khemia, and on this island until the death of Marcus. This is the name by which we know our creator, the one who brought us into being.
    He is the one who warned Marcus of the coming destruction. He is the one who prepared this place for us. And he is the one whose memory the Lords of Aedyn wish to purge from this good land.”
    “Are you talking about God?” Julia asked bluntly. She’d never been much interested in God—
    he seemed too distant, too unreal—but here in Aedyn she felt intrigued. Enthral ed, even.
    Simeon smiled and stood, releasing her chin from his grasp. “We cal him by the name he himself has asked us to use. He is the creator of al things, and the one who guides and cares for his people.
    And the one who wil deliver us from our bondage.” They were interrupted by a slave, who burst in and slammed herself against the door. “The Lady Julia must leave immediately!” she hissed. “The guards are coming!”

    “But I need to know…”
    “Leave now! Your life and ours depend on it!” And Julia left, walking slowly and with dignity, as if she had no reason to hurry or be concerned about anything. She returned to her rooms unchal enged, her mind stil racing, and came back to find her brother waiting for her.
    He stood by a great window, looking out. There was so much that she wanted to tel him, but she was not quite sure how much was safe to reveal. But the meeting with the slaves went out of her mind as she looked at her brother—there was something very wrong with him, she thought.
    “What are you looking at, Peter? You seem worried about something.”
    He turned around and looked at her, his eyes wide. He shook his head mutely and pointed as Julia joined him at the window. Together they looked down at a group of guards far below, gathered round a barrel on one of the castle ramparts. As they watched, one of them lit a match.
    Suddenly there was a loud explosion, and dense white smoke enveloped the scene. As it cleared, Julia and Peter could see that an entire section had been blown out of the castle rampart.
    Julia stared at the damaged stonework for some moments, shocked, and then turned to Peter in disbelief.
    “Peter, please tel me that you didn’t tel them how to make gunpowder!”
    And there was nothing to say. Julia gripped the window ledge, her knuckles white. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she hissed.
    Peter whipped around. “I shared knowledge, just like you said. They’re good people—they’re men of science, of reason.”
    “And you’re not concerned—not the slightest bit worried that these scientific lords might use their new weapon in a way that is not so nice and logical?”
    Peter, reduced to a sul en, shameful silence, thought it best at this point