by Ted Dekker
They tilted the lid toward the rear together, and as soon as the leading edge cleared the trunk, Thomas knew they had struck gold.
Books.
He lifted quickly. Too quickly. The lid slipped from Thomas’s fingers and thumped to the floor. It struck one of the candlesticks, which teetered and started to fall.
Thomas dove for the bronze pole. Caught it. They froze. The snores continued. They set the lid down, sweating profusely now.
The Books of Histories were leather bound. Very, very old. They were smaller than he’d imagined, roughly an inch thick and maybe nine inches long. He estimated there were fifty in this trunk alone.
He lowered his hand and smudged the thin layer of dust that covered one of the Books. Clearly they hadn’t been read in a long time. No surprise there; he wondered if any of the Horde could even read. Even among the Forest People, only a few still read. The oral traditions sufficed for the most part.
The book came up heavy for its size. Its title was embossed in corroded foil of some kind: The Stories of History. He opened the cover. An intricate cursive script crossed the page. And the next. The same writing from his dreams. English.
Plain English. Yet the daughter of Qurong had said the Books were indecipherable. So the Horde couldn’t read then. Unless there was something unique about these books.
He set the book down and lifted another. Same title. Down in the trunk all the other Books he could see bore the same inscription, although some had subtitles as well. He lay the book he held on the floor.
“It’s them.” William barely whispered.
Thomas nodded. It was most definitely them, and there were many. Too many for Thomas and William to take.
He motioned to the other trunk. They cut the leather thong and pried its lid clear. It too was full of books. They eased the lid back down.
“We’ll have to come back,” Thomas whispered.
“They’ll know we were here! You killed Martyn.”
Not necessarily. That could be the work of a disgruntled soldier, Thomas thought. On the other hand, they had cut the leather fasteners on the trunks. They would need to be retied.
They could take a few with them, perhaps one that made reference to—
Qurong coughed in the adjoining room.
He froze. There was simply no time to rummage through the trunks now. They would have to come back with more help and haul them off whole.
Sounds of stirring from the bedroom sent Thomas into action. He motioned with his hands and William quickly understood. It took them longer than Thomas hoped working in silence, but finally both lids were secure. He snatched up the single book he’d withdrawn and stood to examine the trunks. Good enough.
They waited for a long stretch of silence, then slipped past Qurong, ignoring the impulse to finish him. Only after he had the Books. He couldn’t risk a full-scale lockdown on the camp due to Qurong’s death. With any luck at all, no one would know the bedchamber had been violated. They stole back to the servant’s quarters, switched back into the cloaks they’d worn, and squeezed through the cut in the canvas wall.
“Remember, walk slowly,” Thomas said.
“I’m not sure I could walk fast. My skin is killing me.”
The Horde slumbered. If anyone even saw the two on their midnight walk through the middle of camp, they didn’t show themselves. Twenty minutes later Thomas and William left the tents behind them and hurried out into the dark desert.
“Then we go now!” Mikil said. “We have an hour before the sun will rise. And if they’re sleeping, what does it matter if our skin has or hasn’t changed? I say we go in and kill the lot of them!”
“Let me wash first,” William said, standing. “I’d rather take a sword across my belly than put up with this cursed disease.”
Thomas looked at his lieutenant. Neither of them had washed yet—the possibility of returning before the sun rose had delayed their decision.
“Wash,” he said.
“Thank you.”
William marched to his horse, stripped off his garments, hurled them to one side with a muttered curse, and began to splash water on his chest. He winced as the water touched his skin—after only two days the disease wasn’t advanced enough for water to cause undue pain, but he clearly felt it.
“We’re losing time, Thomas,” Mikil said. “If we’re going to go, we have to go now.”
She was still furious at having been left out. Thomas could see it in her eyes. She still couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just slit Qurong’s throat while he lay sleeping.
He lifted the book they’d retrieved and opened the cover once again. The first page was blank. The second page was blank.
The entire book, blank!
Not a single mark on any of its pages. How could this be? The first book he’d picked up had writing, but this one, the one he hadn’t looked in, was empty.
They had to get the other books. Mikil wanted to kill Qurong, but they couldn’t do that until they knew more. And until they had both trunks.
He slapped the book closed. “It’s too risky. We’ll wait and go in tomorrow night.”
“You can’t last until tomorrow night!” Mikil said. “Another day and you’ll lose your mind to the disease. I don’t like this, not at all.”
“Then I’ll bathe and go in tomorrow with the ash, like you. We can’t rush into this. The opportunity may never come again. How often does Qurong come so close to our forests? And this plan of his troubles me. We have to think! By the accounts from the Southern Forest, Martyn was courting peace. It may be in our best interests to play along with this plan of theirs without letting on that we know.” He stood and walked toward his horse. “There are too many questions. We wait until tomorrow night.”
“What if they move tomorrow? And the Gathering is in three days— we can’t stay out here forever.”
“Then we follow them. The Gathering will wait. Enough!”
A horse snorted in the night. Not one of their horses.
Thomas instinctively dropped and rolled.
“Thomas?”
He pushed himself to one knee. Rachelle?
“Thomas!”
She rode into camp, slipped from her horse, and ran to him.
“Thomas, thank Elyon!”
Rachelle knew it was Thomas, but his condition stopped her halfway across the sand. Even in the dark she could see he was covered by what looked like gray ash, and his eyes were pale, nearly white. She’d seen the rot, of course. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the tribe to gray when they delayed bathing for one reason or another. She’d even felt the onset of the disease a few times herself.
But here in the desert, with the odor of sulfur so strong and his face nearly white, the disease took her by surprise.
“Are . . . are you okay?”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “We had to go in dressed like one of them,” he said. “I haven’t bathed. Why are you here?”
His men and Mikil stood around a small circle of bedrolls on the sand. No fire—a clean camp. Their horses stood in a clump beside Thomas. William was only half dressed and was wiping his body down with water. His skin was a mix of clear pink and pasty white.
“How could you do this without telling me?” she demanded. “You haven’t bathed since leaving? You’ve lost your mind!”
He said nothing.
No matter, he was safe; that’s what she cared about. She ran back to her horse, pulled out a leather bag full of lake water, and threw it to him.
“Wash. Hurry. We have to talk. Alone.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to wash first. I’m not kissing any man who smells like the dead.”
He washed the disease clear, and Suzan told the Guard about their journey. But when Thomas demanded to know why they had taken such a risk, she only glanced at Rachelle.
Thomas jerked a tunic from his saddlebag, snapped it once to clear the dust, pulled it on, and faced the
others.
“Excuse us for a moment.”
He took her elbow and led her away. “I’m sorry, my love,” he said in a hushed tone. “Please forgive me, but I had to come and I couldn’t worry you.”
He still smelled. A spit bath would never compare to a swim in the lake. “Running off wouldn’t worry me?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Don’t ever do that again. Ever!” She took a deep breath. “I know why you came. I talked to the old man, Jeremiah. Did you find them?”
“You know I came for the Books?”
“And I’m guessing that you didn’t take the fruit last night as I thought we had agreed you would.”
“You don’t understand; I had to dream.”
Rachelle stopped and glanced back at their small camp. Then she looked into his eyes and swept a strand of hair from his face. “I dreamed last night, Thomas.”
“You always dream.”
“I dreamed of the histories.”
He searched her face urgently. “You’re sure?”
“Sure enough to chase you halfway across the desert.”
“But . . . how is that possible? You’ve never dreamed of the histories! You’re absolutely sure? Because you may have dreamed of something that felt like the histories, or you may have dreamed that you were like me, dreaming about the histories.”
“No. I know it was the histories because I was doing things that I have no business knowing how to do. I was in a place called a laboratory, working on a virus called the Raison Strain.”
She’d rehearsed this a hundred times in the last twelve hours, but telling him now brought a lump to her throat and a tremble to her voice.
“You were a scientist? You were actually there, working on the virus?”
“Not only was I there, but I had a name. I shared the mind of a woman named Monique de Raison. For all I know, I was her.”
His body tensed. “You . . . how’s that possible?”
“Stop asking that. I don’t know how it’s possible! Nothing makes sense to me, any more than it ever made sense to you. But I know without question that I was there. In the histories, I shared the mind of Monique de Raison. Look, I have a cut on my finger that proves it. She . . . I . . . I was handling a piece of white parchment . . . no, it was called paper. The edge of the paper cut my finger.”
She lifted her finger for him, but there wasn’t enough light to see the tiny cut.
“You could have cut yourself here and imagined that you were cutting yourself in a place called a laboratory working on the virus that I’ve spoken of many times.”
“You have to believe me, Thomas! Just like you wanted me to believe you. I was there. I saw the . . . computer. Did you ever talk to me about a device called a computer that computes in a way we can’t even imagine here? No, you didn’t. Or a micro . . .” She couldn’t remember all the names or details; they’d grown fuzzy with each passing hour. “A device that looks into very small things. How could I know that?”
His eyes were wide. He ran his hand through his hair and paced. “This is incredible! You think that you’re actually her? But you look different there than here.”
“I don’t know how it works. I felt like I was her, but also separate. I shared her experiences, her knowledge.”
“I’m Thomas in both realities, but I look the same in both. You don’t look like Monique.”
“You’re exactly the same person?”
“Yes. No, I’m younger there. Only twenty-five I think.”
“The details get fuzzy the longer you’re here,” she said.
He suddenly stopped his pacing, looked directly at her, and kissed her on the mouth. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you.”
She couldn’t help her shallow grin. Here they stood, in the middle of the desert with the Horde not a few miles away, kissing because they had this connection with their dreams.
“Have you dreamed again?” he asked.
Her smile faded. “On my horse, I slept, yes.”
“And?”
“And I dreamed of the Gathering.”
“But not of Monique. Something must have happened for you to dream that one time.” He rubbed his temples. “Something . . . does she know?”
“Monique?”
“When I dream, I’m conscious of myself in the other reality. I know that at this very moment, while I’m awake here, I’m also asleep in a hotel in a place near Washington, D.C. Do you know, is Monique sleeping now?”
Rachelle had no idea. She shrugged. “I don’t think she knows about me, or at least she doesn’t think of me. Or I should say that she didn’t think of me when I was . . . looking through her eyes.”
“Perhaps because she hasn’t dreamed of you. You know she exists, but she doesn’t know you exist!”
He was far more excited about his conclusion than she was. “I don’t find that comforting,” Rachelle said.
“Why not? The point is, you know! You have no idea what this means to me, Rachelle. We’re somehow bound together in both realities. I’m not the only one anymore. Do you know how many times I’ve been tempted to think I’ve lost my mind?”
“So now your lunacy has spread to me. What a delightful prospect. And I don’t think we are bound together in both realities, as you call them. Not the way I understand bonding.” She lowered her voice. “Do you love Monique?”
He blinked. “No. Why?”
“You should!”
Thomas stared at her.
“I mean, if I am Monique, then you have to love me.”
“But we don’t know if you are Monique.”
“No. But at the least, she and I are connected.”
“Yes.”
Rachelle lifted her cut finger. “And what happens to her happens to me.”
“It would seem that way.”
“A man—Swenson?—this man . . . he will kill Monique.”
Thomas didn’t say anything for a moment, as though a real understanding of what she was saying had begun to reach him. Then he gently wrapped his hand around Rachelle’s and lifted her finger to his lips. He kissed her cut. “Dreams can’t kill you, my love.” Thomas’s hand was shaking.
“You don’t need to pretend. You know it better than I do. You told me the same thing yourself fifteen years ago. You said it again last night. If we die in the histories, we may very well die here. I don’t understand it. I’m not sure I want to understand it, but it’s true.”
“I won’t let you die!”
She took a step closer to Thomas so that her body touched his. “Then you must dream, husband. You must stop the virus, because we know from the histories that the virus kills most of them, and I doubt very much that this Swenson has any intention of letting Monique live.”
“Then you think I can change the histories?”
She looked into his eyes. “If you can’t . . . if we can’t, then we both may die. There and here. And if we die here, what will become of the forests? What will become of our children? You must rescue Monique. Because you love me, you must rescue Monique.”
Thomas looked stricken.
“I have to get the rest of the Books of Histories! Now, before the Horde moves.”
“No. You must dream. I know where Monique is being held.”
13
THE OVAL Office. More power flowed from this room than any other room in the world, but watching the hubbub of activity while waiting for his audience with President Blair, Thomas wondered if that power might have short-circuited.
He didn’t know precisely who knew about the Raison Strain, but the urgency on their faces betrayed the panicked disposition of half a dozen other visitors who’d evidently demanded and received appointments with the world’s highest office.
Some were undoubtedly secretaries or aides in the cabinet itself; others had to represent fires the president felt obligated to put out—opposition leaders threatening to go public, concerned lawmakers with good intentions that would ruin the country, et
cetera, et cetera.
If this was the kind of panic that disturbed these stately halls, what was the scene in other governments? From what Thomas could overhear, the governments of the western nations were all but caving in already, only two days into the crisis.
Thomas was seated on the gold sofa with his feet on the presidential seal, facing the president, who sat on an identical couch directly across from him. Phil Grant sat on the couch next to the president. To his right Ron Kreet, chief of staff, and Clarice Morton, who’d come to Thomas’s rescue in the meeting yesterday, sat in the green-and-gold armchairs by the fireplace. A painting of George Washington eyed them from its frame between them. Robert Blair, Phil Grant, and Ron Kreet all wore ties. Clarice wore a plum business suit. Thomas had opted for the same black slacks and white shirt he’d worn yesterday—at the moment, they were the only clothes he owned that had any real dress to them, although he doubted it mattered much to this president.
“You’re sure about this, Thomas?” the president said.
“I’m as sure as I can be about anything, Mr. President. I know it still sounds like a stretch to you, but this is how I learned about the virus in the first place.”
“You’re saying that you found the Books of Histories—these history books that may tell us what happens next—but more importantly, you know where they’re keeping Monique de Raison.”
“Yes.”
The president looked at Kreet, who lifted an eyebrow as if to say, Your call, not mine.
Thomas had awakened early and spent the first hour trying to track down Gains or Grant—actually anyone who could respond to this new information he’d retrieved from his dreams. Both had stayed up late and were finally asleep, he learned. By the time he convinced Grant’s assistant to patch him through, it was almost nine in the morning.
Three minutes later he had both Grant and Gains on a conference call. He had new information, and when he told them what it was, they’d pulled whatever strings needed pulling to move the meeting with the president up.