by Ted Dekker
“Billos?”
“Go, Darsal. Never forget me.”
“No!” She barged forward, grabbed one of the bags from his hands, and faced the coming Shataiki. She flung some water at them and they recoiled, smoldering. But the only cry was hers.
“I stay with you!”
“Darsal, no! Take her, Johnis!”
Johnis snatched one of the books from Karas and shoved it into Darsal’s belt. “Use it!” he snapped, then turned back to Karas.
Working quickly, he popped the twine and threw the cover open as Karas did the same to the book in her hands. He sliced his palm, then hers when she hesitated.
“Ready?”
She glanced up at him with wide eyes, then Johnis shoved his palm flat on his book.
The world spun and then vanished. Johnis clenched his eyes tight, aware that he was suspended, but only for a moment before his feet felt solid ground.
Light exploded through the red in his eyelids. When he opened them again, he was standing in a desert. He blinked against a sun that hung overhead, white, blazing hot.
He was in a desert, but also on a plateau, overlooking a massive valley filled with a gray haze. Spread in the valley below was what looked to be a forest of sorts. Leafless trees of assorted shapes and sizes reached for the sky. Square, triangular, cylindrical …
No, not trees. This was a city. One that dwarfed the Horde city.
“Johnis?” a voice asked.
Johnis turned slowly and stared at Silvie, who was looking at him with wide eyes. She rushed up and threw her arms around his neck, rushing her words. “I was so worried … What took you so long? … I’ve been here for hours … I thought I’d been stranded!”
“Hours? It was less than a minute.”
“No, no.” She kissed him on the mouth. “Thank Elyon you’re safe. I was sure I’d been sent to hell all alone.”
Her whole body trembled against him, like a quivering puppy in his arms. He’d never seen her so upset. She pulled back, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so afraid, Johnis. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Shhh …” He kissed her forehead. “I’m here now. It’s going to be okay.” He glanced at the rise to their left.
Silvie followed his gaze. “I found a large placard over the hill. Big letters announcing a place named Las Vegas. But I couldn’t bring myself to go any farther.”
Silvie looked back into his eyes, then glanced about.
“Where are Karas and Darsal?”
arsal knew the ending of their predicament already, and she accepted it with surprising calm. They would both die in the bowels of the Black Forest. But at least she wouldn’t have to live without Billos. After all she’d been through to win him back, she wasn’t going to leave him, never again.
Johnis had vanished, and then a few moments later Karas as well, leaving Billos and Darsal with the last book tucked in her waist.
“Back!” Billos cried, shoving her behind him as he flung a great handful of the water toward the gates.
Teeleh had vanished during the commotion, leaving only his henchmen to attend to his interests. Two of them fay writhing, claws clacking on the stones, but otherwise silent. No screaming from this bunch. They’d evolved beyond the common shrieks of lesser Shataiki.
The gate flew wide and filled with a red-eyed beast clearly intent on reaching them. Darsal stepped up and flung the entire contents of her bag on the fellow. The Shataiki stood still, skin smoldering and melting in parts. He slowly backed out, shaking head to foot.
Billos sprang forward, slammed the gate shut, and threw the bolt home. He flicked more water on the gathered Shataiki, then even more, pushing them away.
He jumped back, face red. “You have to leave, Darsal. You know you have to leave! Now, before the water’s gone. It’s just a matter of time.”
His words cut like knives. “I can’t, Billos.” Tears blurred her vision. “I won’t leave you again! Not now.”
She felt her back hit the wall. Wet mucus from the worms seeped past her tunic, but she didn’t care.
Billos pressed in close. He glanced to see that the Shataiki were closing in on the gate again, then set his bag down and faced her. There was no way to lock the gate properly—the beasts would be in soon enough to lace another round of water until it was gone. And then they would have their way.
Billos took her hands in his. “Listen to me, Darsal.”
“No, I can’t. I won’t; you can’t ask this of me!”
He grabbed her face firmly, then softened his grip. “Listen to me.”
His eyes bore into hers, and for a moment she lost herself in the stare of the man who’d saved her as a child and protected her a thousand times since. This man whom she loved more than she loved her own flesh.
They could say that Billos had abandoned them for his own gain. They could say that he thought of no one but himself. That he was a bull among clay pots. More muscle than heart, more passion than brains, more sword than sense.
He would as soon kill a woman as kiss one, they could say. As soon beat her in a race as marry her.
But Darsal knew the real man bearing down on her now. This was Billos, the mad, passionate adventurer who made her laugh in times of peace and rage in times of battle. He’d given her life, and she’d made him the man he was today, faults and all.
Indeed, it was the fact that he was flawed that made her, a deeply flawed woman herself, so comfortable with him.
“You are my life, Darsal.” His voice was soft but urgent. “I made my choice to—”
“You had no right,” she cried.
He took a breath and started again. “I made my choice days ago, weeks ago, years ago. Those choices ended today in the lake I told you about, remember?”
He’d told her before they’d touched the books with blood in Paradise. Whatever happened there had been the stuff of mind-bending reality, whether they were seated in chairs hooked up to DELL or not. It was as real as any of this.
Billos had been changed in Elyons lake.
“The lake gave you life! How dare you consider death now!”
Claws clacked on the gates. The bolt slid slowly back. The Shataiki were wary, but coming,
“Because this part of my life is over. There is no more for me. Except you.” Billos touched her face gently, traced the scar on her cheek. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.
Darsal felt as though a sledgehammer was trying to force its way up her throat. Her shoulders shook in silent sobs.
He spoke through the gentle kiss. “I love you, Darsal.” His breath was hot on her mouth. Musky and sweet. She longed to taste it the rest of her life. “Live so that I can die knowing I’ve saved you. Please, I beg you, I beg—”
“No!” Darsal cried, placing her hands on his chest and shoving him away. Then leaning into a scream, “No!”
She grabbed the water bag from him, marched up to the gate, and sent the Shataiki reeling with a huge splash. She slammed the gate, shoved the bolt down, and spun back.
“You cant do this to me …” But her voice faltered. Then she couldn’t speak for the fist in her throat. She stood limp, shaking with terrible sobs. Darsal felt his arms pull her in, and she fell into his chest willingly. For a long moment he just held her, drawing his fingers along her back as she wept into his neck.
Behind her the gate began to rattle again. The Shataiki were coming, and this time there wasn’t enough water to push them back.
The book pressed into her waist where Johnis had shoved it.
Billos spoke frantically. “You have to tell Johnis everything! The white room and Paradise were only a reflection of reality, like a game. A skin or a book’s cover. But the real Paradise exists. On Earth. Marsuvees Black is the Dark One. Three of the books are hidden on Earth, but with these four all seven will be on Earth and will be visible to anyone. You have to tell Johnis.”
The bolt was sliding.
“He knows! It’s not a reason—”
“I’m the reason!” Billos shouted. Then he spoke softer, his eyes reaching beyond her to the gate. “Live for me. We’ll open the book and touch it together. If I am meant to go with you, I will.”
She didn’t feel like she could move. The gate squealed. Billos grabbed the book from her waistband, popped the red twine, and flipped it open before her,
“For me,” he said.
Darsal looked into his eyes. He was asking her to do this for him. It was the last thing she would ever do for him. But she loved him too much to deny him this one dying request.
She leaned forward and kissed him hard. Then pulled back and set her jaw. “I love you desperately, Billos of Southern. You are my chosen one.”
A grin tugged gently at his right cheek. “I am, huh?”
He winked. Then he shoved his hand on the opened page.
Two thoughts crowded Darsal’s mind. The first was that the Shataiki were breathing down her neck. The second was that Billos wasn’t disappearing.
He suddenly grabbed her hand, sliced it open, and flattened it against the page. “And now I choose you.”
Darsal made another vow then, her hand on the book. I will avenge your death, Billos. I will wage war on all who caused you to die until the day of my own death.
Then her world spun and blinked to black.
ohnis and Silvie stood on the cliff, silenced by the sheer size of the hazy valley before them.
A sea of towering buildings, gray from this distance, had been built between ribbons of flat rock that crawled with horseless buggies. Whole structures looked to be as large as all of Middle under one roof. The city below would make the Horde city seem a village by comparison.
“What do you think?” Silvie asked, voice tight,
“I think I prefer the Horde.”
Silvie looked at the two Books of History under his arm, “This was a mistake. We’re down to two books. We don’t even know if Karas and Darsal made it through. How are we supposed to find all seven books in this place cursed by Elyon?”
“You think Alucard is here?”
She didn’t respond. Her hand took his and tightened. Not out of affection, he knew, but because she knew more terror now than she ever had and needed a hand of comfort. Johnis knew this because he, too, felt … fear, More fear than was reasonable.
“We made the right choice, Silvie.” But even as he said it, doubt skipped through his mind. “We’re here to find the seven books before the Dark One does. We’ll do that or die trying.”
“Spoken like the good old Johnis we all know so well.” She said it with a bite of frustration.
“Something’s wrong with us,” he said. “I don’t feel myself.”
“Really? You just now noticed?”
He returned his attention to the valley. A dull roar rose from the city. “So … where are we?”
“I told you,” Silvie said. “We’re in hell.”