by Ted Dekker
“That time could be sooner than you think,” Samuel said.
“Why wake the sleeping bear before its time?”
“Don’t underestimate what we can do for each other.”
“How so?”
Samuel no longer had anything to lose.
“What if I could bring you elite fighters able to defeat ten Horde with a single blade? I’m talking about a new kind of Forest Guard capable of holding the flank or ravaging an army’s backside as you take it head-on.”
“Yes, so you’ve said—”
“I’m not talking about four. Or forty.”
No response.
“What if I could bring you four hundred?”
This time Eram stared over the massive canyon filled with his army in serene silence. When he spoke there was a new respect in his voice.
“Then you will be a legend among the Eramites.”
28
THE FIRST thing Billy noticed when he opened his eyes in the other earth—the future earth—was that he was exactly the same person as he’d been a moment ago, before diving into the book behind Janae. Same jeans, same T-shirt, same hands, same pounding heart.
The second thing he noticed in this future was that he, Janae, and Qurong had followed the books into the same location as Janae’s last journey here, the visit she had paid in her dreams. They were in Ba’al’s study, staring in wonder at the ease with which they had crossed realities.
Of course. The books take you where you think you belong. In some strange way, I am Ba’al. Or at least someone who identifies with Ba’al.
But in other ways, he was nothing like Ba’al.
Ba’al’s journal, his blood book, lay on the desk beside him. This one book held the secrets to more than he could recall from his short time in the dark priest’s mind. He picked up the ancient book.
“It worked,” Qurong said, looking at his hands. “We . . . we’re back.”
“You doubted us?” Billy asked.
“I think you meant to leave me,” the leader said, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Where I belong as the ruler of this world,” Qurong replied, turning back.
“Is that what you think? Teeleh is the ruler of this world.”
It struck Billy then that he couldn’t read the man’s mind. Or the mind of Janae, who was staring at the bloodstained altar upon which sat the lost books. Now that he was here in the flesh, his gift no longer worked? But the vials of virus had come through, surely. And the gun?
“I mean no offense,” he said. “But we have to regroup here and think through what just happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Qurong said. He resumed his march for the door. “Nightmares are not for me to understand.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Janae snapped. She’d come to herself, and he saw that she’d had the presence of mind to shove the gun into the pocket of her lab coat. But where were the vials?
“There’s more at stake here than your little kingdom, you fool.”
“Easy, Janae,” Billy breathed. This wasn’t their world, not yet.
She blinked, then visibly relaxed. “All I’m saying is that the world you were just in is real. Everything you heard was true.”
Qurong held his hand on the door latch. “Such as?”
“Such as the fact that you’re surrounded by enemies. The Eramites, the albinos, Ba’al . . .”
“And two albino witches from another world are here to save me, is that it?”
“We have a few tricks up our sleeves, yes,” Billy said. “You’ve already forgotten?”
“The weapons,” Qurong said. “Am I blind, or do I see nothing? Show me.”
Janae glanced at Billy, then pulled out the gun.
“Of course,” Qurong said. “The blunt knife you claim can throw steel. I’m quaking in my boots. This is what I’m supposed to slaughter the Eramites with?”
“No. The virus is for that.”
“And it didn’t come through,” Billy finished.
Janae glanced at him. Surely she would take his cue, knowing that turning anything over to Qurong now only stripped them of their leverage.
“But that means nothing,” Janae said. “The point is, we are of tremendous value to you.”
“How?”
“We can use the books, go back, retrieve whatever we like.”
“I’m not impressed.” Qurong opened the door and left the room, leaving them alone in Ba’al’s study.
Interesting that he left the books behind. Surely the man wasn’t as dense as he appeared. Billy shoved Ba’al’s journal behind his belt, pulled his T-shirt over the cover, and scooped up the four volumes. “Just go easy. We have to figure things out.”
“What we have to do is get out of this place. We don’t belong with these people.”
“And go where?”
Her eyes shifted, and he suspected she knew as well as he did. If so, she wasn’t admitting it. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “But I didn’t come here to hang out with these fools.”
“Did you think they would be gone? That this was Paradise?”
“Why the hostility? The last thing we need now is to start at each other. The fact of the matter is, we have more power than they can possibly imagine. We just have to figure out how to use it.”
“The virus came through,” he guessed.
She felt the side of her bra. “Unless they insist on an intrusive strip search, it’s safe enough. This, on the other hand”—she put the gun back into her coat pocket—“doesn’t scare anyone.”
“It will once they know what it can do.”
“That’s right, Billy. Knowledge.” She stabbed her temple with a pointed finger. “What we know is our greatest weapon.”
Fair enough.
“Why did you come here, Janae?”
She stared at him, peeling back the layers. “You can’t read my mind?”
“Not in this place.”
She sighed as if this was to be expected, and headed into the dark hallway Qurong had entered. “For the same reason as you, Billy. I came to find myself.”
Billy followed her, thinking she was right: they didn’t belong here. Not in the temple, not in the city. His destiny rested with another, a Shataiki named Marsuuv, who lived in the Black Forest. The memories he’d taken from Ba’al while in his body were now faint, but three crucial elements drummed through his mind without reprieve:
There was a part of him that wasn’t of the natural world.
His destiny was irrevocably linked to a queen named Marsuuv.
Everything that had happened, from the birth of evil to the Raison Strain to the coming apocalypse, was all his doing, because he’d not only started it all, he was going to finish it all.
Billy, the redhead from Paradise, Colorado, was the first and the last. The beginning and the end.
He was ground zero.
No, a small voice suggested somewhere in his brain, Thomas is ground zero. You’re just trying to catch up.
But he knew that wasn’t the truth. At the very least, they were both ground zero. Two sides of humanity. Take your pick.
Billy and Janae walked down a dark hall and peered into a large sanctuary filled with images of the winged serpent, Teeleh. Another altar, like the one in Ba’al’s study, sat at the center of the room, still glistening with blood.
Billy stepped past Janae, overwhelmed by awe and the full impact of the room’s icons: The black candles, spewing smoke into the air. The brass images of Teeleh on the altar. Long velvet curtains on all the walls, emblazoned with the same three claw marks that they all wore on their foreheads, this mark of the beast.
Familiarity hit Billy with the force of a punch to his chest. He’d found his way home.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that Janae’s jaw was parted. She felt it too, didn’t she? She knew more than she was saying. Or at least felt more.
He walked into the room on light feet, as though the s
tone floor was holy ground easily defiled. They’d crossed the centuries and were standing in the sanctuary of an exotic religion that worshipped the same being who’d made him Billy.
He touched the altar, impressed by the silky surface of the stone— was it granite? Perhaps marble?
Ba’al had been in the presence of Marsuuv, Teeleh’s queen, and the memory played at the edge of Billy’s mind like a pied piper.
“We made it, Billy,” Janae breathed.
“Put the books on the altar,” a voice rasped behind them.
Ba’al.
Billy turned slowly, having no intention of setting the books anywhere. Then he saw Qurong, standing with arms crossed behind Ba’al, who’d evidently been waiting for them, and he knew they had made a terrible mistake.
“Back off,” Janae snapped. She waved the gun at them. “Stay where you are or I swear I’ll blow both of your heads off.”
Ba’al had tasted Billy’s own thoughts, but clearly nothing about guns had surfaced during his short visit. He walked forward, fearlessly. “She said, back off!”
“Then blow my head off!” Ba’al snapped. “Use your toy and kill me if it be Teeleh’s will. But know that I am his servant. Marsuuv is a jealous beast who has no patience for albinos who threaten holy men with toys.”
His argument wasn’t lost on Janae, whose aim faltered.
“Good to see you again, Ba’al,” Billy said. “Or should I call you Billos?”
“Call me what you like. I am who I am.”
“And so are we, two lovers of Teeleh. Show us how to find him and we’ll leave you.”
“These two are liars who could lure a snake into bed and bite its head off,” Qurong said. “Don’t listen to them.”
Ba’al walked around them, smiling. “Snakes, are you?”
“No,” Billy said. “But we belong to one, and his name is Teeleh.”
“So you keep saying. We’ll find out soon enough. In this very room. Set the books on the altar and step away.”
“I can’t do that.”
“No? You, of all people, should know why you must do it. You’ve been inside of my mind and know that I’ve searched for those books for a very long time. Marsuuv compels me to take them to Teeleh. You would stand in the way of his queen?”
A quandary.
“Give me the books and I will let Teeleh have you,” Ba’al said.
“Shoot him, Janae. Kill this weasel now. Put a bullet between his eyes and end his miserable life before . . .”
Click.
Billy blinked. Was that what it sounded like?
Click, click, click.
“It doesn’t work,” Janae cried. She pulled the trigger again with no better results.
“Why should it work?” Ba’al asked. “If your eyes were opened you might see Shataiki claws at work this very moment, protecting Marsuuv’s lover. Please, throw down this useless tool. Lay the books on the altar. It is my last invitation.”
Billy hesitated only a moment, then set the books down carefully. If Ba’al was telling the truth, he would take them to Teeleh rather than use them. Perhaps it was best for all of them.
“Tell us how to find him.”
“You don’t find Teeleh, he finds you. Go out into the forest and call his name. Trust me, he’s always there, watching.” Ba’al lifted the books and stepped to one side. “Thank you.” He headed for the door that led to his study. “Dispose of them as you like.”
“What of this virus they speak about?” Qurong asked.
“Yes, of course.” Ba’al turned, but his mind was clearly on the books in his hands, Billy thought. “Strip them, search them. I’ll instruct my priests to sacrifice them tonight when the moon wanes.”
“I would be more comfortable if you were to oversee their execution.”
“I won’t be here. My master compels me. It is the end, my lord. The great dragon’s time has come.”
Billy’s breathing had stalled.
“They are crafty,” Qurong said, frowning.
“They’ll be dead tonight, my lord. I swear it.”
29
QURONG WALKED down the hall, stormed into the atrium at the front of his home, and shrugged out of his robe before he passed into the dining room. “Get me my general!” he boomed. “Now.”
The robe dropped to the floor, where one of the servants would retrieve and wash it of the stink that came from his nightmare. Thomas’s reputation as a wizard was well-known. Even as the commander of the Forest Guard, he’d possessed an uncanny ability to appear and vanish at will, along with his army on occasion.
But this! Deceiving Qurong with the illusion that he was in another reality was a talent surely no other man had.
“Where’s Cassak? Get him now. In my quarters!”
He didn’t care who heard him, only that he was heard. A shuffling of feet preceded the fleeting image of a servant fleeing the dining room.
“Hello, my love.” He turned to Patricia, who leaned against the hall entryway to his left, still dressed in her night robe. She crossed her arms and ran her eyes down his body. “You’re either feeling frisky this morning or you’ve lost your mind.”
He glanced down at his half-naked body and swore. “I should have killed that albino ten years ago when I had the chance.”
Patricia walked to the table and picked up a piece of yellow nanka. “He’s escaped?”
“Of course not.” But Qurong suspected that Thomas had indeed given him the slip. He’d taken Thomas to his private library, where the witch had somehow put him under with a spell. The next thing he knew, he was popping out of the vision in the Thrall with two equally evil albinos, whom he’d turned over to Ba’al.
“I’ve released him,” Qurong said.
“You’ve released Thomas,” she repeated scornfully. “You have no right to make these kinds of unilateral decisions!”
What on earth was she talking about? How dare she question his authority.
“She’s my daughter too,” Patricia snapped.
“Daughter? I’ve been tricked by a conniving witch and all you can think about is a daughter you haven’t seen for ten years?”
“I waited up for you all night, you thickheaded bull! Who am I, your servant?”
“Silence!”
“Don’t you silence me, Tanis.”
He felt his veins run cold. She knew how he loathed his ancient name.
“I spent the night alone in the darkness, alone because both my husband and my daughter have left me,” she said. “Fine, Qurong. Be the big, strong hero for all your people to see. But don’t toy with my heart.”
“Now what have I done?” he demanded. Only a woman could make so much out of so little. Give them a single fact and they’d fashion it into a story before taking a single breath. “I’ve just spent the night in a hellacious trance. My kingdom’s falling down around my ears, and you scold me?”
“Don’t try to distract me with more tales of how close we all are to the day of doom, Husband.” She took a deep breath and gripped both hands tightly, a very bad sign indeed. “I want you to find my daughter,” she said. “I want to speak to Chelise.”
She turned and strode toward the kitchen hallway. “The next person I speak to with Qurong’s blood will be my daughter.” At the door, she shot him a daggered stare. “And don’t bother coming to my bed.” Then she was gone.
Qurong stood rooted in complete befuddlement. Surely she had to know his heart, that he was as bothered by Chelise’s absence as she, that he’d lived in misery since her departure. He tried to inoculate himself with bitterness and denial, and that had helped for a while, but even his obsession with finding and eliminating the Circle was for her sake. He would slaughter this cult of fanatics who’d brainwashed her.
He talked about not having a daughter, but only to protect Patricia and himself. This was required of a strong leader forced to make hard choices in times of war.
“Cassak!” he roared.
“Here, sir.”
Qurong spun to see his general standing in the doorway. How much had he heard? It didn’t matter. Qurong had more pressing matters to tend to. So he told himself, but he’d learned long ago that nothing was as pressing as his wife’s peace of mind. He would rather go to war with Eram than face down Patricia.
He spat to one side and marched into the hall that led to his bedroom. “Follow me.”
He couldn’t think about bringing Chelise here now. He didn’t even know how to find her! And what would he say? Your father has finally come to his senses—please, let’s be a family again?
She was albino, for the love of Teeleh!
Meanwhile, Ba’al was conspiring to overthrow him. Qurong couldn’t be sure of everything about Thomas’s magic, but it had revealed a thing or two, and he wouldn’t ignore the warnings.
“My lord?” Cassak was hurrying to keep pace behind him.
Qurong entered his room and stripped out of his undergarments. He needed to cleanse himself of the albino stench before leaving the palace. This time he would welcome the pain of bathing.
“Sir.”
“Yes, Cassak. Close the door.” Qurong grabbed a fresh tunic from the end of the bed. He pulled it on and faced the general.
“Tell me how much I can trust you.”
Cassak hesitated. “I am your servant, my lord, not Ba’al’s. If you were to order me to kill him, I would.”
So then, Cassak was aware of the threat as well. Was it so obvious?
“I wouldn’t issue such an order, but I accept your loyalty. What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room.”
“Of course not, my lord.”
Qurong walked to the window overlooking the western city. More than two million Horde lived in Qurongi City; of those, over a quarter were males of fighting age, trained in combat as required of all adult men. But no sign of impending war was evident in the sprawling city with its mud huts and smoky chimneys.
His subjects had grown fat off the forests; rich, even. Little did they know the mounting threat from the desert.
“Prepare the army.” He swung around. “Send word that we will march north to the Torun Valley for training exercises.”
“Consider it done. It will be good to take our third division out; they’ve grown fat.”