by Ted Dekker
Was it? Thomas felt his gut churn.
“I accept,” Vadal snapped.
“To the death.”
“Stop it!” Chelise cried. Then, in a softer voice, “I warned you about this, Samuel.”
“Did you? Our prevailing doctrine denounces violence against the Horde,” Samuel said, “but what does it say of the challenge? We speak all night long about tales of the heroics that preceded us: Elyon this, Thomas that . . . I say let the heroics be seen in the flesh. Elyon will save the one who speaks the truth as he once did.”
His argument contained a thread of truth that turned Thomas’s blood cold. Before their very eyes they were witnessing the greatest threat to all truth. And from the mouth of his own son. But Thomas was too stunned to form a response. This was his own son, for the love of Elyon!
Chelise whispered his name urgently, and he saw that she was staring at him, begging him to stop Samuel.
Instead, Thomas looked at Ronin and Johan for support. William, Mikil, Jamous—any of them. They all stared at him for guidance. Were they, too, growing tired of waiting for an imminent return that had been imminent for longer than any of them cared to think? Could this be the source of their hesitation?
Samuel wasn’t the only one to wonder if Elyon really was coming back for a “bride” anytime soon. After all, he’d allowed them to take beating after beating without so much as lifting a finger. What good was being disease free if you lived in ridicule and on the run?
Thomas caught Ronin’s stare. “Ronin?”
The spiritual leader of Thomas’s clan frowned, then studied his son Vadal and Samuel.
“No one in the Circle has issued a challenge for a very long time. Never, that I know of. It’s utterly foolish.”
“But was it outlawed?” Samuel pressed.
Chelise flung both arms wide. “This is so much nonsense, this flexing of the muscle to prove a point. And to the death?” She turned to the others. “Come on, Mikil! Johan, surely you can’t think this is permissible.”
“It’s absurd,” Mikil said, and Johan agreed, but neither was demanding. The fear in Thomas’s gut spread. Why weren’t they rushing out and dragging Samuel off his horse in protest? They harbored a small vessel of doubt themselves? Surely not all of them!
Samuel took advantage of their inaction. “Didn’t Elyon once condone our use of force? Has he changed his mind? Does Elyon change his mind? Well, well, by the heavens I’ve made a dreadful mistake, I will change the way it is done! Is this a perfect Creator?”
He let that settle.
“No. Elyon knows that it is better to love, that everything rests on the fulfillment of the Great Romance, like the union of bride and groom after a night of dizzying celebration. But sometimes love can be expressed by defending the truth. Vadal has that prerogative. No, Mikil?”
The famed fighter shifted her eyes to Thomas, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Samuel, but by this very deflection she had endorsed him. Didn’t she realize what she was doing? Supporting this ludicrous assertion before the entire Gathering could only bring ruin!
But the fear cascading down Thomas’s spine rendered him mute as well. A dozen years ago he would have cut this challenge to the ground with a few well-placed words. Those days were gone, replaced by a wisdom that now seemed to fail him entirely. Smothered by dread.
“Does this Gathering cower from the truth?” Samuel called out. “Let me fight as the Eramites fight!”
Thomas had risked his life on a hundred occasions to love the Horde, to win Chelise, to follow the ways of Elyon, no matter how dangerous or brutal the path. Now that path had doubled back and was running straight down the middle of the Circle itself. The greatest danger was from inside, he always told the others. Tonight it had finally bared its teeth for all to see.
And there was no outcry from the Circle against Samuel’s demand.
Thomas looked up at the thousands regarding him. “Who says so?”
No one shouted agreement, as was their right. But after several beats a younger man from another clan—Andres, if Thomas was right—lifted his drink.
“So says I.” They looked at him, and he stepped forward into the orange firelight. “There is a time for peace and there is a time for war. Maybe the time for war has come. Didn’t Elyon once wage war?”
A hundred ayes rumbled through the night.
So then, Samuel was tapping the unspoken sentiment of many. This attitude was practically epidemic, a cancer that would eat them alive from the inside.
And this from his own son . . .
Thomas tried to swallow, but the fear now swelling through his head prevented the simple action. He’d faced that devil Teeleh himself and bested him in the blackest forest; he’d hacked his way out of thirty encroaching Scabs with a single broad blade; he’d marched into the city to the cheers of a hundred thousand throats shouting the praises of Thomas of Hunter, the greatest warrior who’d ever lived.
But at the moment, he was only a terrified husk. Useless against this enemy called Samuel, son of Hunter.
It occurred to him that Samuel was speaking again, demanding more from the crowd. “Who else?” he was shouting. And hundreds were agreeing.
“Don’t be so thin headed!” William cried over them all. “We’ve always agreed that we were shown a new way by Elyon, apart from the sword. Now our impatience changes that? Our way is to love our enemies, not wage war on them.”
A thousand ayes and shrill cries of agreement shook the canyon.
Finally! Finally some sense!
“But I am within my rights to make this challenge, am I not?” Samuel demanded. “And Vadal is in his rights to accept.”
“Aye.” The agreements peppered the gathering, but all eyes were now back on Ronin and Thomas.
Ronin must have noted the concern that had locked up Thomas, because he addressed the crowd.
“Yes, I suppose it is right what Samuel says. Nothing I know of has outlawed his prerogative to challenge my son. And Vadal has the right to accept that challenge or reject it, which would be the wiser by far. Frankly, I’m appalled that there isn’t a protest among you all. Have you decided to feed your bloodlust?”
“He’s right,” Chelise said. “This is the kind of thing we might do as Horde.”
“Or under the old Thomas,” a lone voice called.
“All things may be permissible, but not all are beneficial,” Ronin said, cutting off any further dialogue that might mire them in their own violent history. To Vadal, his son: “Surely, you see the madness in this.”
“I see the madness in what tempts Samuel and half of the Circle,” he said.
Samuel slid out of his saddle and landed on the ground with a slap of boots on rock. He slipped his sword from its scabbard, thrust the bronzed tip into the shale, and rested both palms in its handle.
“What is it, O favored one? Shall we test the truth?” The fool wasn’t taking any of this seriously! Or worse, he was drunk on his own power and took Vadal’s death very seriously.
“I accept,” Vadal snapped.
“No!” Marie, Thomas’s eldest child and Vadal’s betrothed, stepped out, ripped a sword from the mount closest to Samuel’s, and twirled it once with a flip of her wrist. “I exercise my right to take the place of any other in a challenge.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Vadal said. “Step back!”
“Shut up. If you have the right to throw away your life, so do I. Those are the rules.”
“That was a long time ago. Get back, I’m telling you!”
Marie turned to the elder. “Ronin?”
The spiritual leader nodded. “It is her right.”
Samuel grinned, whipped his sword through a backhanded swing, and circled to his right, inviting Marie into an imaginary fighting ring.
“Stop them!” Chelise was glaring at Thomas, whispering harshly. “Do something.”
He did nothing. He could hardly think straight, much less trust himself to do something he would not l
ater regret. He could not stop them; they all had the same freedom to make their own choices.
The grin had faded from Samuel’s face. Surely he wouldn’t use his sword on his own sister. This was Marie’s ploy. She knew that Samuel would back down. This was her gamble, and Thomas could see the wisdom in it.
“So, Sister. It’s you and me, is it?”
“Looks that way.” She walked closer, dragging her sword casually behind her. Not to fool a soul; they all knew she was a devil with that thing.
Samuel glanced at the blade, leaning on his own with confidence. “I’m not the young pup you punished the last time we played this game.”
“This isn’t a game,” Marie said. “You’re playing with the fate of our people.”
“You’ll get hurt,” he said.
“Then hurt me, Brother.”
3
WHILE THOMAS HUNTER stood in the canyon, unraveling, Billy Rediger paced the atrium of Raison Pharmaceutical in Thailand two thousand years earlier, in our own reality—or the histories, depending on how one looked at it.
Billy took a moment to take in his surroundings: the rich golden marble floor, the huge paintings of a red and yellow flower that looked as though it might be the bug-eating variety, the gilded wallpaper, two heavy crystal chandeliers that could crush a Volkswagen. The drug giant’s exotic facade fueled his haunting impression of Raison Pharmaceutical.
This is where it had all started roughly thirty-six years ago, in this very building just outside Bangkok. Seven years before Billy had been born and whisked away to the monastery in Colorado, where he’d been raised and turned into a freak.
This was where Thomas Hunter had stumbled upon the Raison Strain, the deadly virus that turned the world upside down. How many dead was it? Hardly imaginable.
But worse than what had died was what had survived Hunter’s discovery.
What would Darcy and Johnny say if they knew of the obsession that had overtaken Billy’s mind this last year? He had a pathological need to understand why his life had been profoundly impacted by these books called the Books of History.
If his two confidants knew of his quest, they would leave their safe harbor in Colorado, hunt him down, and lock him in a cage. Because they would assume that Billy was after more, wouldn’t they? More than just understanding, more than just connecting with his past, more than chasing down the truth, more than . . .
“They will see you now, sir.” The receptionist, a man named Williston, had a heavy French accent.
Billy turned, startled out of his moment of unguarded admissions. They? He’d asked to see only Monique de Raison.
He caught his image in a ten-by-ten mirror framed in heavy black ironwork. Still dressed in the same white shirt he’d thrown on just before landing eight hours earlier. The self-applied blond highlights in his red hair looked too obvious, and his head hadn’t seen a brush since the takeoff from Washington, D.C., a day earlier. Here stands Billy Rediger, one of the three famed gifted savants who turned Paradise, Colorado into a household name. The rumpled look would have to do.
He was twenty-nine going on nineteen. If they only knew.
Billy wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, squirted a dash of cinnamon freshener into his mouth, straightened his collar, and strode for the door as the dark-haired Williston looked on with a deadpan stare.
“Thank you, Williston. Thank you very much, sir. And by all means, ditch the blonde from France. Go for the local girl. It’s what you want.”
The man blinked with surprise. “Pardon?”
“Ditch Adel. You think she’s a whore, and you’re probably right. Go for the maid—what’s her name? Betty. Yes, Betty.”
The man was speechless—probably wasn’t every day a stranger told him what he was thinking. This far from home, not many knew of Billy’s unique gifting. And if they did, they associated it only with a distant face seen on the Net, not a real, living human being walking before them in three dimensions.
He stepped past the ten-foot doors into a white office with colonial latticed windows that looked out to the thick green jungle beyond. At the room’s center sat a large teakwood desk with a cream-colored lamp that shed yellow light over a clean glass top.
The dark-haired woman who stood behind the desk looked younger than her reported sixty years—all those drugs she manufactured, he supposed. After six months of searching out every scrap of information he could harvest from records far and wide, Billy felt as though he already knew Monique de Raison.
She’d accepted full control of Raison Pharmaceutical from her father, Jacques de Raison, after the Raison Strain had all but destroyed the infamous company. Rebuilding the company’s shattered image was no small task, but she’d risen to the occasion and delivered with flying colors. The sharp, dark eyes studying him as he walked toward her opened to a mind that missed nothing.
Billy knew, because it was his gift to know what anyone was thinking by looking into their eyes.
This is what Monique was thinking at the moment: Younger than I expected, dressed like a punk. Is he really reading my thoughts this very moment? Does he know I will turn him away regardless of what he hopes to accomplish? Does he know that he’s a freak?
Billy stretched out his hand. “Yes, I do know that I’m a freak.”
Monique stared at him for a moment, then lifted a pair of dark glasses from the desk and put them on, effectively blocking her mind from his probing eyes. She took his hand. “So you can do what they say.”
“Thanks to Thomas Hunter,” he said, and released her hand. Because yes, without Thomas Hunter there never would have been magic books to turn him into the freak he was. But that was all in the past.
Billy was here to change the future.
A blonde woman of about Monique’s age sat to his right, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded in her lap. She wore dark glasses already, not wanting to risk any exposure to his prying eyes, but he recognized Kara Hunter immediately. Thomas Hunter’s sister, keeper of many secrets regarding the blood Billy was seeking.
Both Kara and Monique in one sitting. He’d struck gold.
Billy crossed to Kara, who rose and offered her hand. “Mr. Rediger.”
“And you would be Kara Hunter.”
She nodded.
“Please, have a seat,” Monique said, motioning to the guest chair in front of her desk.
He did, and they both eased back into their chairs. Eyes on him, he presumed, though he couldn’t be certain what their eyes were doing behind those dark glasses.
“It is a bright day, isn’t it?” he said, failing to lighten the mood.
“What can we do for you?” Monique asked.
“Just like that, huh? You meet one of the few people alive today whose life was profoundly impacted by the Hunter legacy and that’s all you can ask?”
“Every living being on this planet was profoundly impacted by my brother,” Kara said. “Not the least, himself. You have this interesting gift because you evidently came in contact—”
“Evidently? Try conclusively.”
“Conclusively?” Monique cut in. “And what else have you concluded?”
“That thirty-six years ago Thomas Hunter claimed to have dreamed about another reality. That this other reality was, in fact, real. That the Books of History, magical books that turned words to flesh, came to us from that reality. I should know. I used them. They gave me my gift.”
“Evidently.”
“Conclusively. Did you know that I wrote about Thomas in the books? Maybe that’s why he dreamed what he dreamed and awakened in this other world of his. If I hadn’t written it, he wouldn’t have gone there, and if he hadn’t gone there, he wouldn’t have learned how to alter the Raison Vaccine and turn it into an airborne virus that did what it did. You might say I was the one who started it all. That it was all my fault, not yours, Monique.”
He knew by their silence that his role in these events was news to them, and he continued while their heads stil
l spun.
“So here I am. Billy, the one who has a gift for seeing more than most people can see, just like Thomas Hunter had a gift for seeing, or in his case dreaming, what most don’t dream. That makes me unique, don’t you think? You could even say it gives me certain rights.”
Kara stood and paced to the window, arms crossed. She turned slowly back and studied him through her dark glasses. “Your case is fascinating, Mr. Rediger—”
“Billy. Please call me Billy.”
“Fascinating, Billy. But it’s no more than what either of us has faced. I’m sure you can appreciate that. As you obviously know, we both had a singular relationship with Thomas. You came out of your experience with this unique ability to read people’s thoughts when you look into their eyes. That sounds like a net gain. I lost a brother. Many people lost their lives.”
“Net gain?” he snapped. He tried to remain calm, but he wasn’t as adept at controlling his temper as he’d once been. “You call this curse a gain? I’m a freak! My soul haunts me. I can’t live in the same happy ignorance that the rest of you can when every lousy thought is opened to me. It’s driving me mad, and I have to root out the meaning of all this. End it all.”
“We’re sorry you’ve suffered, Billy,” Kara said, clasping her hands before her. “But the stakes were always more than feelings, yours or ours. We’ve all paid a price. I think it’s best to leave the past in the past. Don’t you?”
“Well, see, that’s just the thing, Kara.” A little too much emphasis on her name. Mustn’t sound so condescending. “I don’t think the past is in the past. For one thing, I’m not in the past. I’m here and now, a living consequence of your brother’s indiscretions.”
“Granted, you’re one of the many effects—”
“And then there’s the matter of his blood.”
He wished for a line of sight into their eyes. But he hardly needed to read their minds to know he’d hit the nerve he’d come to hit.