by Ted Dekker
They all knew this was it. Elyon called to them from these intoxicating waters.
Thomas pushed his mount faster, oblivious to the dead underfoot. He rushed forward, aware that he was going in the wrong direction. The waters still called to him from behind.
But Chelise was ahead.
A wounded albino who looked like he’d caught the scabbing disease rushed past him, headed for the lake with tears streaming down his face. He stumbled to the edge and threw himself into the water. A halfbreed rushed the waters on the opposite shore. Both vanished below the shimmering surface. Neither reemerged. Others left alive by the Shataiki followed.
Still others fled the lake, clawing back up the valley’s slopes.
Thomas saw Qurong clearly now. The Horde leader had fallen on his face and was gripping an article of clothing. Behind him on a flat boulder lay the naked body of the dark priest, Ba’al, now headless. To his right, a fallen half-breed, facedown.
But no sign of Chelise. Or Samuel. None!
He pulled his horse to a stop, dropped to the ground, and rushed Qurong. “Where is she?”
The leader didn’t look lucid. He’d been weeping for some time. Thomas grasped his dreadlocks and yanked his head back. “Where is my wife? Tell me!”
“Gone!” the man cried, shoving the clothing at him. “Vanished!”
Thomas was about to slap sense into the man in his eagerness to know, when he recognized the bloody tunic beneath the Horde cloak by Qurong’s knees. And the riding pants, still stuffed into the tops of boots.
Boots . . . These were boots that he himself had made. Chelise’s boots. She’d been here!
He spun back to the lake, and the meaning of what had happened filled his mind. Chelise had been here, slain in battle. But Elyon had taken her.
“My son!” he demanded, spinning back to Qurong again. “Where is my son, Samuel? He was with the Eramites.”
Qurong’s eyes snapped up, and realization spread over his face. He turned to his right and looked at the slain half-breed.
“There. There is your son, the one who killed my daughter.”
Thomas stood slowly, fighting to stay steady as he turned to the body lying facedown. He walked forward, gripped the sword still sticking out of the warrior’s chest, and turned the man over.
Disease covered his skin and his armor was patently Horde, but there was no doubting this man’s face. Samuel. Samuel, who’d turned Scab, lay dead. And his body, unlike Chelise’s body, was still here, trapped in this world.
Heat spread down Thomas’s face and neck and then flashed down his body, squeezing off his breath. The strength to stand left him and he dropped to his knees.
How could this be? Chelise hadn’t been able to save him?
The sky had emptied of Shataiki. Down at the lake, the last of the seven thousand plunged into the depths. The battlefield grew quiet.
But here, in Thomas’s head, there was a moaning that washed over him like the voices of a thousand dead.
His heart was breaking and his mind was falling apart, and he no longer cared to live. He covered his face with both hands, lifted his chin, and wailed at the sky.
“Samuel . . . Samuel. Samuel, my son, my son!”
He tore at his tunic, ripped it wide open, and cried without reserve. “Elyon, save my son . . .”
The air was silent.
The vaguest notion of paradise without Samuel was more than he could bear. This was Teeleh’s doing!
“Elyon has no ears,” Qurong said to his right.
“No!” Thomas snarled, twisting around. “You’re wrong.” He shoved his finger at the red pool. “Drown! Drown, you fool. My wife and my son have given their lives; now, drown! Dive into the pool, draw his water into your lungs and drown!”
Thomas staggered to his feet, face hot, drawing energy from his sorrow. Then he faced the sky and screamed. “Elyon! Elyon, hear me. Save my son!”
The sky remained silent.
A new way came to him. He spread his arms and searched the sky. “Let me go back. Let me find my son. I beg you, Elyon. Anything . . . anything! Just let me save my son.”
Nothing.
He clenched his eyes and threw both arms wide. “Elyon!” he cried. “Elyon!”
The words Michal had spoken a week earlier sliced through his mind: Follow your heart, Thomas, because the time has come . . . he will give you what you ask in that hour when all is lost.
With all of his strength, from the pit of his stomach, he screamed at the sky. “Elyon! Fulfill your promise!”
QURONG WAS lost in his own black misery, but this simple fact pointed out by Thomas rose like a beacon of light on the dark horizon: Chelise, his own daughter, had given her life for him.
And she had demanded that he drown.
Thomas was demanding the same. Drown, drown, you old fool. Drowning was foolishness. But then, he was dead already, surrounded by the dead.
Drown, Father. Drown, drown!
Thomas spread his arms wide and screamed at the sky in rage. “Elyon!” And again, with such force Qurong thought the man might damage his lungs. “Fulfill your promise!”
Then it happened for the second time in the space of ten minutes. One moment Thomas was standing there; the next, nothing but air filled out his clothes. He simply vanished as Chelise had vanished. And now his tunic floated to the ground, empty.
Qurong stared at the heap of clothing, staggered by the unexplainable. Could it be that this wasn’t Teeleh’s doing? That both Chelise and Thomas knew what he did not? That the drowning was Elyon’s gift to the Horde?
He turned and faced the red pool, heart and mind heavy with loss. Not a soul stood living. They had all either died, fled, or thrown themselves into the lake. The Shataiki sped south, high in the sky. Toward his city to feed.
By nightfall, every living soul would be consumed by Shataiki. This was Ba’al’s gift to them. And yet he, Qurong, remained alive. Why?
He looked at the wound in his arm, where Thomas’s blood had mixed with his own, offering him some protection against the disease and the beasts. And now that man had vanished before his eyes.
Drown, Qurong. For the sake of Elyon, drown!
He turned downhill, swallowed the lump in his throat, and walked forward. This is what you were born to do. To drown. To dive into the lake and to laugh with Elyon.
Desperation crept over him and he lumbered forward, running now. Over fallen bodies.
Drown, you old fool. Just drown.
He broke into a sprint, and now he couldn’t get to the water’s edge fast enough. Suddenly nothing else mattered. All was lost.
But there, just ahead, lay a red lake with a green core, and he couldn’t run fast enough. Qurong started to weep as he ran, blinded by his own tears.
“I will drown. I will drown,” he mumbled. “I will drown for you, my Maker. I will drown for you, Elyon.”
And then Qurong, supreme commander of the Horde, dived into the lake. He inhaled the bitter waters of Elyon’s death. He drowned in a pit of sorrow.
And he found life in a world swimming with color and laughter and more pleasure than his new body could possibly manage.
46
THE WORLD AROUND THOMAS blinked off, then on, then he was standing on the white sand, facing a bright blue horizon in perfect silence.
Here? Alone? Like a fist milking his veins, his heart throbbed. Time seemed to have stalled.
But he knew he couldn’t be alone. The boy . . .
The boy had to be here.
He turned ever so slowly. The boy stood twenty feet away, arms crossed, lips flat and gaze steady. Behind him, a green lake reflected the clear sky, like a shiny mirror.
“You want to save your son?” the boy asked.
“Yes.”
“You want to save Samuel?”
His lover’s face filled his mind. “Chelise . . .”
“Is with me,” the boy said.
Which could only mean Samuel was not.
“I . . . I can’t live without him.”
The boy looked at him for several long seconds, then shifted his eyes to the horizon. “I know how you feel.”
“I know this is within your power,” Thomas said. “If you would save all of Sodom for ten souls, you could give me the chance to save my one son.”
“I did save him,” the boy said, looking back.
“I’ll take that risk. I . . . You did?”
“But he turned his back. This isn’t just about you and your son. If I were to send you back you might help your son, but at what cost? The cost of saving even one is beyond you.”
He hadn’t thought of it in those terms.
The boy uncrossed his arms. “Walk with me.”
Thomas hurried forward on weak legs. He joined the boy, who reached up and took his hand as they walked along the shore of the lake behind.
“Will I ever see him again? Samuel.”
“Perhaps.”
“This isn’t the end, then.”
“The end? There is no end. Think of it as more like a beginning.”
“Will it be better or worse?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether evil is embraced again. As long a humans remain human with a free will they will have the right to choose. Although the old beast has lost for now. For a time.”
They walked ten paces in silence. The boy’s fingers felt so small in his hand. Thomas looked at the water and for a few moments considered withdrawing his request to join the others. Chelise and Mikil . . . Kara. He could only imagine their pleasure now, dancing and tearing about like children.
“The others are waiting.”
“Where?”
The boy looked at the water. “Past the pool. In a new world.”
Thoughts swirled in Thomas’s head but his longing to dive deep pulled at him. This was his destiny now, to dive. Samuel had made his choice, he would leave his destiny up Elyon.
The boy stepped to one side and winked. “Are you ready?”
Thomas faced the glassy pool. “Dive? In here?”
“Dive deep,” the boy said.
Thomas took one last breath, nodded at the boy, and dove deep. Very, very deep.
47
TWO DAYS HAD PASSED, and Bill now knew what he needed to know. Something had gone wrong. Drastically wrong. Thomas had not shown as Marsuuv had promised. And he never would show.
Bill was trapped in this reality. If Thomas did not dream there was no other reality.
Or was it the other way around? Was this the dream? Or neither?
Either way, there was no way for him to cross over now to wreak havoc in that world.
He would simply do what damage he could here, in this world, and hope that in another world Marsuuv, his master and lover, approved.
48
THE INSTANT Thomas hit the water, his body shook violently. A blue strobe exploded in his eyes, and he was tempted to think that he was going to die. That he had entered a forbidden pool, pulled by the wrong desire, and now he would pay with his life. But he’d been here before and he knew that was not the case.
The warm water engulfed him. Flutters rippled through his body and erupted into a boiling heat that knocked the wind from his lungs. The shock alone might kill him.
But he didn’t die. In fact, it was pleasure that racked his body, not death. Pleasure! The sensations coursed through his bones in great, unrelenting waves.
Elyon.
How he was certain he did not know. But he knew. Elyon was in this lake with him.
Thomas opened his eyes and found they did not sting. Gold light drifted by. No part of the water seemed darker than another. He lost all sense of direction. Which way was up?
The water pressed in on every inch of his body, as intense as any acid, but one that burned with pleasure instead of pain. His violent shaking gave way to a gentle trembling as he sank into the water. He opened his mouth and laughed. He wanted more, much more. He wanted to suck the water in and drink it.
Without thinking, he did that. He took a great gulp and then inhaled unintentionally. The liquid hit his lungs.
Thomas pulled up, panicked. Then he carefully sucked more water and breathed it out slowly. Then again, deep and hard. Out with a soft whoosh.
He was breathing the water. In great heaves he was breathing the lake’s intoxicating water.
But none of this should have surprised him. He’d been here before, more than once. Floating into Elyon himself. And yet each time felt like the first.
He could spend an eternity in these waters and feel as though only a moment had passed.
Thomas shrieked with laughter. He tumbled through the water, pulling his legs in close so he would roll, and then stretching them out so he thrust forward, farther into the colors surrounding him. He swam into the lake, deeper and deeper, twisting and rolling as he plummeted toward the bottom. The power contained in this lake was far greater than anything he’d ever imagined. He could hardly contain himself.
In fact, he could not contain himself; he cried out with pleasure and swam deeper.
Then he heard them. Three words.
I made this.
Thomas pulled himself up, frozen. No, not words. Music that spoke. Pure notes piercing his heart and mind with as much meaning as an entire book. He whipped his body around, searching for its source.
A giggle rippled through the water. Like a child now.
Thomas grinned stupidly and spun around. “Elyon?” His voice was muffled, hardly a voice at all.
I made this.
The words reached into Thomas’s bones, and he began to tremble again. He wasn’t sure if it was an actual voice, or whether he was somehow imagining it.
“What are you? Where are you?” Light floated by. Waves of pleasure continued to sweep through him. “Who are you?”
I am Elyon.
And I made you.
The words started in his mind and burned through his body like a spreading fire.
Do you like it?
Yes! Thomas said. He might have spoken, he might have shouted, he didn’t know. He only knew that his whole body screamed it.
Thomas looked around. “Elyon?”
I see you, Thomas.
I made you.
I love you.
The words filled the entire lake, as though the water itself had become these words. Thomas let them wash through his mind like a powerful narcotic.
The water around his feet suddenly began to boil, and he felt the lake suck him deeper into itself. He gasped, pulled by a powerful current. And then he was flipped over and pushed headfirst by the same current. He opened his eyes, resigned to whatever awaited him.
A tunnel of bright light opened directly ahead of him, like the eye of a whirlpool. He rushed into it and the darkness fell away. The light became Green.
New Life. For a moment there was silence as he descended into the soft emerald color. The water was suddenly filled with a song. A song more wonderful than any song could possibly sound, a hundred thousand melodies woven into one.
I love you.
I choose you.
I rescue you.
I cherish you.
“I love you too!” Thomas cried desperately. “I choose you; I cherish you.” He was sobbing, but with love. The feeling was more intense than the pleasure that had racked him.
The current suddenly pulled at him again, tugging him up through the colors. His body again trembled with pleasure, and he hung limp as he sped through the water.
This was his New Birth, he thought.
He wanted to speak, to scream and to yell and to tell the whole world that he was the luckiest man in the universe. That he was loved by Elyon, Elyon himself, and that he had heard it from Elyon’s own voice, in a lake made by him.
But the words would not come. His mind was lost in the pleasure of that rebirthing.
When Elyon spoke again, his voice was gentle and deep, like a purring lio
n.
Never leave me, Thomas.
Tell me that you’ll never leave me.
“I will always stay with you.”
Another current caught him from behind and pushed him through the water. The boy’s voice came again just before he broke the surface, a mischievous daring sound that stopped Thomas’s heart for a moment.
Then wait till you see what I’ve made for you this time.
Thomas was laughing with delight when his body broke the surface not ten meters from the shore. But the moment his eyes laid sight on what the boy had managed this time his laughter was cut short by a gasp.
Images of the colored forest and the Roush and the lions and the intoxicating fruit from the first Eden flooded his mind. But they were gone as quickly as they’d come.
This . . . Now this was staggering. A thing not even he, Thomas of Hunter who’d crossed the worlds through his many dreams, could have possibly imagined.
This . . . This was spectacular.
Then Thomas stood and walked out of the lake, green water dripping from his limbs like the memories of a day long past. And his body would not stop shaking for the pleasure of this new world.
Not for a very, very long time.
THE END
A Note from the Author
about the Original Ending to Green:
The original ending to Green that you are about to read was designed for those who started the series with Green and then would continue on to Black, Red, and White. But since Green was clearly the end of your reading, I wanted you to have the end, the climax of all four books.
Although the original ending was intellectually fascinating and certainly mind bending, it didn’t have the same emotional payoff as the version you just read. I love them both. But I’ll leave it up to you to decide. We are, after all, in a world where the choices we make alter everything.
The Original Ending of Green
45
THE WORLD around Thomas blinked off, then on, then he was standing on the white sand, facing a bright blue horizon in perfect silence.