by Ted Dekker
“Truly, Seriph?” Roland said. “Your zealots seem to have forgotten what the boy has given us. Now that you have his blood you would use it for your own gain, is that it? Conquer the world? Rule? Who needs Jonathan now that we have what he has to give?”
Even as he said it, he wondered who he was trying to convince—Seriph, or himself.
“Are you saying you haven’t thought the same yourself? Jonathan is no leader of men. We have as much power as he has now. He’s one boy, born within Order while our heritage extends—”
“You think your Prince has forgotten his history? I don’t need a lecture, I need your obedience.”
Seriph inclined his head, his eyes still fixed on Roland. “Of course, my Prince.”
Hooves, pounding the forest floor. Word was coming.
A cry rang out. “They’ve been sighted! Coming this way from the south.”
Roland turned to Michael. “Your men are ready?”
“Always.”
“Then let’s see if we can work our own magic and give Rom what he wants.” He headed for his horse. “Michael, with me. Seriph, Anthony, take your horses to the trees. I don’t want you seen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JORDIN HADN’T FELT SUCH FEAR as she had these last few days. The prick of anxiety, yes, when she couldn’t find Jonathan. That moment of hesitation when she realized that he was missing from camp. But never true fear because he always appeared, as though in response to her unspoken call for him, just as he had yesterday when he had returned to camp with the Corpse boy, Keenan.
But now, as they skirted the southeast edge of the city, she was afraid. Haunted by images of Dark Bloods, afraid that the day would come when there would be more than she could protect him from. Terrified that they would take Jonathan from her.
That she would ultimately be without him.
They shouldn’t have come. But Jonathan was set and would have come with or without her. And leaving his side was as unacceptable to her as losing him.
They’d ridden straight through the day, only stopping when necessary to rest and water the horses or relieve themselves, eating in the saddle, speaking little. She did not need to ask where he meant to go, or why. She knew. And what her Sovereign wanted was as good as a directive in Jordin’s mind.
It was the reason returning Keenan to the outpost had been so difficult. For the first time her loyalties had been thrown into direct conflict. It had torn at her to do it, having seen the look on Jonathan’s face, the way he had bent down to talk to the boy before reluctantly letting him go. But she didn’t resent Rom. She couldn’t; he was their leader, and of all people in the world, he loved Jonathan almost as much as she did.
Today they had come right at the city in full daylight. When she suggested that they go in through the tunnels, he had dismissed the notion. He wasn’t interested in entering the city center, then. That much, at least, offered her a slight measure of relief.
But only a little.
They skirted the city, east and then south, keeping to what cover they could. This entire side of Byzantium was scattered with stunted trees and the refuse of ruins—old storehouses and factories that were barely more than broken concrete foundations sporting scrub grass through widening cracks, their wooden sides and metal beams long ago scavenged for reuse.
They rode past a small electrical plant, one of several satellite centers that supported the ration of electricity to Byzantium’s citizens, and beyond that a sprawling rail station for the transportation of garbage. The tracks led directly south to the industrial wastelands, where it might be disposed of far from the capital. She watched one of the trains pull away from the station as another waited to take its place at the dock.
Overhead, the sky had begun to churn. A storm was coming. Odd how quickly the weather could turn. And this seemed to be a large one, come out of nowhere. Although she didn’t relish the idea of getting caught in a downpour, she would welcome the veil of a sluicing rain in any retreat.
Jonathan leaned forward in his saddle as they pressed southward through the scrim of scrub and ruined concrete buildings, skirting the garbage plant some five hundred yards out. Now she saw what had his attention: a walled perimeter extending beyond the last dock. It had to be twenty feet high, solid concrete, with rolled wire at the top.
Painted on the stretch of wall was the unmistakable compass of Sirin. Order’s most revered symbol.
The wind abruptly shifted again, blowing up from the south, carrying an odor far more familiar and far less appealing to her nose than garbage.
Corpses.
A putrid smell, different from any she had encountered.
She jerked back on the reins of her horse and stared past the end of the nearest dock. The great walled compound sat at the city’s perimeter like a tumor, with a sinister smokestack easily fifteen feet in diameter rising out of the middle.
Ten feet ahead of her, Jonathan had also halted. She moved up alongside him, turned to him, started to speak, and then stopped.
He was staring at the walls ahead of them, visibly shaking in his saddle.
“Jonathan?” she said.
He was too fixated to respond.
When she looked back, she wasn’t sure at first what he was looking at. The smokestack?
The sky above it?
No. He was staring at the smoke. It was faint against the backdrop of the coming storm, drifting serenely as a ghost up toward the roiling sky. Almost beautiful. Effortless as breath.
That wasn’t… that couldn’t be…
That was the smell.
With a sharp cry, Jonathan spurred his stallion forward into a hard gallop. Reacting instantly without a thought, Jordin followed hard after him—across the waste, toward the departing train, even as it began to pick up momentum. Jonathan leaned low, his stallion easily leaping the double track. Jordin glanced north, at the oncoming engine, the sound of it a banshee wail in her right ear, thirty feet off, closing—
She bent low, leaped the track just ahead of the rushing engine and spurred the horse on. A roaring gust of wind from the passing train blew her braids into her face.
Adrenaline charged her veins. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Despite fear, despite concern for Jonathan, she had been made—made—for this. Not just to feel the sides of her stallion straining beneath her or the oncoming storm in her face.
But for him. To follow him to the end of the earth.
They raced along the length of the north wall, marked every hundred feet with Sirin’s compass painted in red and faded around the edges to brown like a drying wound.
There, on the adjacent side of the perimeter, a long brick building rose from the western wall. In the middle, a wide iron gate. An entrance. Rolls of barbed wire coiled along the crest of the roof like metal serpents.
Jonathan slowed as they came to the building, pulled up, and without warning dismounted.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re here.” He drew his horse by the reins toward the building.
She swung down from her mount, glanced back toward the city. There were train tracks here, leading up from a tunnel that emerged from the city perimeter. They stopped directly before the building itself.
She glanced up at the sign above the gate.
AUTHORITY OF PASSING.
Ahead of her, Jonathan was unbuckling the scabbard at his waist.
“Jonathan… What are you doing?”
“I’m going in.”
He was going in even as everything within her was suddenly screaming Leave. Get out! Because this was not only a place of Corpses.
This was a place of death.
“How?”
Overhead in the observation windows, a guard leaned forward watching them through the glass. A second man was pointing, lifting, and speaking into something on a cord.
Panic rose up, cold inside her. There was still time. She could still get him back to safety…
“Jonathan…”
He slipped his sword through the straps of his saddle bag, secure against the horse’s flank. “There’s only one way in that I can see.”
No.
He glanced at her, held her gaze for a moment.
Do you trust me?
Do you believe me?
She could get him out. There was still time. She closed her eyes.
Yes.
When she opened them, he was already moving off toward the gate.
Yes.
She unbuckled the sword slung over her hips and hung it on the saddle next to her bow and quiver. But she left the knife tucked into her boot, conscious of its presence against her ankle as she rushed after him.
A door off the side of the gate opened and a uniformed guard stepped out. Six foot tall. Close-cut hair. He reeked. Not just of Corpse, but of the same stench emanating from the smokestack within the compound. But he was common Corpse. Not Dark Blood.
“What are you doing here?” His eyes searched both of them, lingering on Jonathan’s Nomadic braids and then his embellished tunic and then on her, before narrowing slightly.
Jonathan looked him straight in the eye. “We’ve come to turn ourselves in.”
It was all Rom could do to stop and rest the horses. Given the choice, he would have ridden them into the ground.
“We’ll kill the horses if we don’t rest them,” Triphon shouted.
“If we don’t make it, nothing matters!”
“And we’ll have less chance of getting Jonathan safely out without mounts.”
The urge to run the rest of the distance was nearly more than he could bear. But Triphon was right—his mount was frothing along his coat. They’d soon be on foot at this rate.
They stopped by the side of a brook just outside the city.
“What was he thinking?” he said, pacing.
Triphon was silent. He’d taken out the food. Neither of them touched it.
“What was he thinking?!”
“You know what he’s thinking.”
Rom had heard the story about the night they escaped from the city. Triphon was right, more than he knew. He knew exactly why Jonathan had gone to the city, and for whom.
The girl in the cart.
But how did Jonathan dare risk the future of Mortals? Surely he realized how shortsighted he was being to bring one Corpse back to life!
Could he still bring a Corpse to life?
He had effectively multiplied his blood by bringing the twelve hundred Mortals to life—perhaps that had been the intent all along.
No. The world needed its Sovereign. He was meant to rule. He must rule.
But first, he must live.
“That’s long enough,” Rom said, striding to grab his horse’s reins. Triphon shook his head, but did likewise.
Thirty seconds later, they were riding hard again.
“To turn yourself in,” the guard said, looking from Jonathan to Jordin.
“Yes,” Jonathan said. “The paperwork should be coming. We volunteered to come immediately out of obedience. For the hope of Bliss. But if you could take us inside now…”
He wasn’t adept at lying—he had never had to be.
Neither had she.
Jordin looked away, fearing that he would see in her the impulse to slice open his throat if he so much as laid a hand on Jonathan. Which she would.
He was frowning at Jonathan’s braids again as one who frowns while trying to remember the words to a song, not quite there, but on the tip of the tongue.
“You must be from the west side of the city.”
“Yes. The west. Our parents are… artisans.”
“Sumerian then. You’re not wearing your amulet.”
“We took them off already, to leave with our families. In remembrance of us.”
“What’s wrong with you that they’ve sent you here?”
Her gaze flicked to Jonathan whose attention had drifted from the man to the yard through the gate. Beyond, two rows of long buildings with small, industrial-sized windows—none of them open—ran all the way to the back perimeter. There were perhaps thirty of them in all.
“I’ll make a call,” the guard was saying. “It’s not every day we get volunteers.”
“No,” Jordin said, her attention snapping back to him. “He was born with a crippled leg. He’s fine now, but he hid it for so long, he’s concerned about—about Bliss. About his status with the Maker. We attended basilica together. We confessed to the priest and he advised us…” Was she even getting any of this right? It wasn’t like she’d ever attended basilica in her life.
“And you?”
“I…” She remembered then, a story she had heard once, about Rom’s lover, the first martyr. “I spilled lantern oil on myself two years ago. I hid it—from everyone. Under these clothes, I’m completely scarred. I’m supposed to be married…” Her gaze drifted to Jonathan, but he was lost to them both. “And the secret will come out soon. I can’t bear it. I’m tired of hiding. I want to be right… with the Maker.”
She realized belatedly that she wasn’t sure what she would do if he demanded to see evidence.
The guard grunted. His gaze was tinged with every indication that he would be finished with them both as quickly as possible. Association with the damaged and the imperfect was not a thing anyone craved—even a guard doing his job.
“Suit yourselves. You’ve obeyed the statutes—and for that you may find Bliss.” He said it as one who has spoken the same words many times, words without meaning except to those who heard them.
“We understand.”
“Sign.” He tapped an opened ledger across the top of which was inscribed its title: The Book of Passing.
Jordin suppressed a shudder, her mind skipping to the Book of Mortals on the altar of the inner sanctum. It seemed profane for her name to be inscribed anywhere else.
Jonathan was staring at the smoke rising from the stack, oblivious to them. The guard noted his stare and frowned.
“What did you expect, boy? People are sent here to die. Most are terminal anyway, but you know that. As soon as your paperwork’s processed, we’ll release permission for your funerals, but as far as the Order’s concerned, you’re already dead. Get used to it. Sign.”
So… It was true, the stories. Jordin took the pen and scrawled Tara Shubin in the ledger, the first name that popped into her head.
“How long does it take to die here?” Jonathan asked.
The guard shrugged. “We don’t have the resources to support you for that long. It isn’t fair to the living to be taxed on behalf of supporting the dead. Everyone here has a one-year limit.”
One year?
The guard tapped the book and handed the pen to Jonathan who absently took it and wrote his true name: “Jonathan Talus.”
Jordin glanced sidelong through the iron gate. Here and there a few forms moved about on concrete pathways between buildings. They walked with the posture of those who had nothing to offer, of those unacceptable by Order’s standards, who might find acceptance only in their resignation of what little life they had, and the hope that obedience might earn a better hereafter.
What kind of Order could so twist the minds of its faithful to live in death?
“Your horses will be sent to the Citadel stables or the butchers. Anything you have of value will be put toward the considerable expense of the Center.”
She nodded, but her attention had gone to Jonathan, who had stepped up to the gate to grasp it by two iron bars.
“Anything of value?”
“No,” Jordin whispered. Nothing but the knife in her boot. A weapon no Corpse would be caught dead with, so to speak.
He was looking her over with clinical appraisal. “You’ll be issued new clothing as you need it. Our counselor isn’t on duty—we weren’t expecting any new arrivals. I’ll take you back to your housing and you’ll have to get your instructions on showers and food from her later.”
Jonathan stood unmoving, staring through the bars.
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br /> “Each dorm is opened for one hour of each day. Unit Five is open now.” He glanced at his watch. “In fifteen minutes they go back and Six opens for an hour. You’ll learn the rules.”
She gave a mute nod.
“There’s no priest here. No basilica. Your last service will be your funeral. They’ll pray for you there. You’ll find a copy of the Book of Orders in your housing unit.”
Jordin felt ill.
“Stand back.”
Jonathan stumbled back as the guard lifted the heavy key ring from his belt, fitting the largest one into the gate’s heavy lock.
“Welcome to the gateway, if you’re fortunate, to Bliss.”
Bliss?
She peered at the rows of concrete buildings through the opening grate. The figures milling about outside of them, a few of them staring at the new arrivals at the gate, some of them from grimy dormitory windows. All of them waiting to die.
This then, was the desire of the Order’s Maker?
The gate swung wide as pale gray smoke wafted from the smokestack toward the restless heavens.
The condemned peered at her as though she were an apparition. A thing not from their realm, as though a part of them had already passed from this life into the next, and only waited for their bodies to catch up.
The guard stood aside, avoiding touching either one of them, she noted, as though death were a catching disease.
Move. But something within her balked at the thought of this place. Of setting foot on the cracked concrete walk that extended out from the gate, down between the rows of buildings. The Authority of Passing offended every sensibility within her as a Nomad. Its confinement, the view of nothing but the insides of those twenty-foot walls, the three-story round tower that was their only exit out—it all reeked of a living death. Of Corpse.
Move.
She stood rooted to the spot until Jonathan stepped forward. He walked past the guard and into the compound. The Giver of Life… standing in the place of death.
Bile rose up in her throat and for a moment she thought she might be sick.
Jonathan stopped ten paces in and looked back at her—a quiet look that was neither order nor request. Simple acceptance, whether she entered after him or not.