Thanks for the reviews, guys. I'll keep this commentary short- merely to say that this story will NOT end with Chapter Ten! I'm so proud of myself. Now read, enjoy, and review ( -my obviously unnecessary requests)!

Disclaimer: I claim everything in this chapter as my own, minus any ideas the His Dark Materials Trilogy written by Phillip Pullman created by Phillip Pullman ( - I'm running out of creative disclaimers, much to my dismay, sorry for any confusion).

Chapter Nine

Indeed, life processed as if I had never been one of the chosen the entire week. I was relatively ignored, and the only sign that I had been Chosen besides the bracelet I wore was the fact that I was permitted to take the finest foods from the banquet tables at dinners anywhere in the tower. Konstantin sniffed the bracelet each night as we lay in bed, and I could tell that he didn't trust the blonde who had convinced me to wear it.

The sixth night after I had been chosen, we had decided to go to bed early, and I held up my wrist, examining the bracelet as I lay in my nice bed. Konstantin sniffed at it again, and then eyed it closely. "There's some sort of enchantment on this," he said.

"Huh?" I replied. "Magic? There's no such thing."

He quietly laughed. "Remember that the clarineto brought us here. There is definitely something wrong with you if you don't realize that magic is entirely possible in worlds other than our own." Then he lost all traces of humor. "Don't ask me how, but I can smell the enchantment, and it isn't good."

"Then I'll just take it off and hand it in tomorrow," I replied.

"Now."

I fiddled with the bracelet, trying to find the clasp. "Konstantin, there's no clasp." I heard his sharp intake of breath, and more frantically, I tried to find some weak link in the chain, but my searches were fruitless. Trying to pull the bracelet off didn't work either- the loose fitting chains that slid up and down my arm refused to come off my hand.

"What about the clarineto?" Konstantin asked me. I retrieved and reassembled it and sat back down on the bed. For some reason, my thoughts were rattled, and Konstantin's sense of complete fear rolling across our bond wasn't helping me concentrate. Finally, I tried calming my breathing. Once my pulse and breathing had returned to their normal state, I put the clarineto to my mouth. As always, my fingers moved upon their own accord as I blew, and I concentrated on my intense need to have the bracelet off my person.

The bracelet glowed white and seared my arm. I cried out and dropped the clarineto into my lap. The skin underneath the bracelet was burnt badly and already blistering, and I had a feeling that not even the powers of the clarineto could remove the enchanted bracelet. I disassembled the clarineto and put it back in its case. As I climbed back into bed, Konstantin heard something, and he began growling at my door.

"What is it?" I asked him, already changing into the clothes that the old man had given me more than a week ago.

"People. Coming this way. They sound like men, and-" Konstantin began, but I didn't wait for him to finish before opening one of my windows. Several stories down, I could see a strong net that was used to catch things that might fall from any level of the tower. As the door was forced open, Konstantin leapt into my arms, and I in turn leapt out into the air.

The fall was a long one, and I had a wonderful view of the men that had broken into my room leaning out of my windows. And then there was a huge jolt as we hit the net, and we bounced a few more times before finally settling. The men at my windows were gone now, and I had no doubt that they were racing to beat me to the ground. I spotted a smaller net closer to the ground and ran over to the space separating it from the net I was on with great bouncing strides.

A short leap and long drop resulted in Konstantin and I landing upon the smaller net. Quickly, we leapt to the ground and began running out into the area of the plains from whence we had originally come. There was a great roaring sound, and I turned and saw men pouring out form the male tower and hopping onto flying vehicles that could over take me quickly.

Fortune must have been with me, for almost as one, all the eyes that had been upon my receding shape were momentarily diverted, and Konstantin and I dropped to the ground, burrowing under layers of dead grass with an extra meter of grass overhead. The roar of the flying vehicles increased, and despite the fact that my instincts were directing me to run, I stayed hidden.

We huddled together, hidden under the grass as roaring vehicles flew by all around us, and eventually the constant roar and the sweet smell of the night grass put us to sleep.

The morning sun and small rodents scurrying through the grass nearby awakened us, and for a moment I couldn't recall where I was. Then the previous night's events resurfaced in my mind, and I remembered the bracelet. Looking at it, I discovered the clasp had returned, and I gratefully removed it and threw it off into the grass. Konstantin licked my face and then we surfaced, warily peering over the tops of the grasses.

In the space between the two towers, I could see a platform surrounded by men and some girls stood in chains next to a podium. The sun glinted off their wrists, and I saw that they were all wearing the bracelets of the Chosen. A round of applause greeted my ears, and a burly man roughly grabbed the girl in the center of attention.

Horrified, Konstantin and I watched the proceedings and when the crowd had dissipated, I sunk down onto the grass. So those Chosen were sold as slaves to those of the neighboring tower. Which means that the reason I had been forced to flee my room the previous night was because the men were collecting the Chosen. And that meant that I had very narrowly managed to escape slavery myself.

Konstantin nudged my hand. "The clarineto- did you bring it with you?"

Frantically, I patted down my pocket and a sinking feeling appeared in my stomach. "No. I left it. Dammit! That was our chance to get out of here!" I swore, and then continued swearing with curses strong enough to make even the most seasoned sailor blush.

Konstantin's hazel eyes met mine. "We must go get it back. It's the only way we can leave this world. Otherwise we'll be caught and sold into slavery."

"But if we're caught while we try to get the clarineto back, then we'll be sold into slavery as well," I replied, despairing.

"Riva. Listen. It is essential that we get the clarineto back. If we don't, we'll die. We must go back to our own world or else we'll die."

"How do you know?" I demanded.

"I just do. It's like the magic on the bracelet- I could smell it," Konstantin replied.

"And I suppose you smelt out this piece of handy information?" I asked, near tears and altogether weary of traveling through worlds.

"No, actually, that one I heard somewhere in our own world."

Resigned, I sighed. "Alright. We'll go get the clarineto back. But first, I want to know how."

Konstantin cleared away the dead grasses until we reached dirt, and then, using his paw, he drew a rough sketch of the tower. "There are enchantments here, here, and here," he said, indicating the specified areas with his paw. "We can use the clarineto to escape the tower. The tough part's getting in."

"Of course it is," I said sarcastically. "They'll definitely be waiting for us with open arms and just hand me back the clarineto."

"That would be nice," Konstantin replied, "but unfortunately, you were Chosen. You can't just boldly walk into the tower and demand your clarineto back."

"Actually," I replied. "I was thinking of a more subtle way to get back to the room that I left it in."

Tsk tsk. Riva managed to lose the clarineto already. Don't you love my cliffhanger? Anyways, review, review, review. I should be able to update this store once more this week if I am fortunate enough to be able to reside at my computer for an hour or so.