Mortal

by Ted Dekker

  He knew one thing now: the boy must die.

  One hand on the pommel of his saddle, Saric pushed himself up, eased his right leg over his horse’s hind quarters and slipped to the ground. The true battle wasn’t between Dark Blood and Mortal with sword and ax. It was here, to be decided between two rulers. One would live to rule.

  The other would die.

  “Jonathan!” The sound of pounding hooves joined the howling wind. Rom Sebastian, desperate, blocked by the line. “Run! Run, Jonathan!” A commotion rose up from the north. The crash of clashing steel; shouts of outrage and bitter curses.

  The sounds were distant in Saric’s mind, from a dimension that no longer mattered. He gripped the hilt of his sword and deliberately pulled it from its scabbard with a loud scrape.

  “Some would bring a new kingdom that flows with alchemy, intent on ruling the world for their own pleasure and gain,” Jonathan cried, his eyes on Saric as he approached and then mounted the steps.

  “Others would rule as Mortals over lesser life.” He lifted his head, pointed in the direction of the Nomadic Prince and his men. “But today a new kingdom is among you. A kingdom where I am Sovereign, where I will reign with those who follow me. The deceiver comes to take what he cannot possess, but I offer my life freely to all who would live.”

  Saric glared up at the boy spouting his nonsense.

  Terrified by his words.

  Uncaring because they meant nothing.

  Infuriated by his accusations.

  Trembling.

  Jonathan seemed to have said his last. He stood in front of the poles from which the remains of a leather bowl hung, watching Saric.

  The fighting beyond the line grew to a cacophony, now south as well as north. The Mortals were once again in full attack. A pointless battle of a lesser kind.

  Saric stepped onto the raised floor of the ruins and stalked toward the boy, tip of his sword trailing on the stone behind him. Another peel of thunder shook the sky.

  “Hello, Saric.” The boy’s voice was soft, for him alone. His eyes were limpid in the oncoming storm. “Do you see nature’s rage?”

  Saric shot a quick glance at the black sky. Saw that it was rotating as if to drain the world.

  “The Maker’s Hand,” Jonathan said.

  Maker’s Hand.

  He’d heard the lore. Surely he wasn’t claiming to be more than a man born of blood. The boy had lost his mind.

  Or have you lost yours?

  “I know you long for life, Saric.” The boy said, too quietly for anyone else to hear in the rising gale. “Your heart is black but you can’t ignore the cry of truth that my blood would bring you something beyond your imagination.”

  All of Saric’s fears coalesced into one deafening question: what if it was true? What if the object of his search stood before him now, a pure vessel of beauty, truth, and love?

  For a moment the notion drowned his hatred. The body before him became a vessel of unsurpassed, raw life to be consumed, not crushed. To be tasted, not destroyed.

  To be worshipped.

  Without thinking, Saric lifted a trembling hand. Hesitated. When the boy didn’t move, he touched his fingertips to his cheek. A ripple of power rode up his arm and into his body.

  Saric shuddered.

  “Look in my eyes,” the boy said.

  As though of its own accord, his gaze traveled from the boy’s cheek to his eyes. Light flashed like sunlight through the boy’s storming hazel irises. Saric felt his body go rigid.

  But there was more… A great and terrible sadness.

  Empathy.

  Tears.

  “I am the life you long for. My light will imprison you always. I make it so.”

  At the boy’s last words Saric’s world flashed with a brilliant light, blinding him to everything but the singular truth: he was dark as the pitch in his veins. The boy was infused with light. He, not the boy, had been deceived. Here was life—not in his veins, but flooding those of the one before him. Life he had never known. Life.

  Saric’s legs buckled. He dropped to one knee, a great wail rising up from the pit of his gut, a heavy sob that was horror and grief and outrage all. It stole his breath, washing reason and purpose away.

  Somewhere below, the Mortals were making a last, hopeless attempt to break through his lines—he could hear the sound of it far away.

  He wept, only distantly aware that his children could see him—their Maker, kneeling before this boy. This Sovereign of a realm he did not—could not—comprehend.

  “You spawn only death,” Jonathan said. “I, not you, hold power over life. See and know, dark Lord.”

  Saric felt his sword wrenched from his hand. He jerked his head around to see Jonathan flying down the steps, no longer a boy but a warrior streaking toward the nearest line of Dark Bloods.

  With a scream that turned Saric’s blood cold, Jonathan tore into the closest of them, easily sidestepping a frantic thrust of the warrior’s spear. The boy’s blade flashed and severed head from body.

  Jonathan spun, screaming still, narrowly missed by another thrusting blade. He was too fast. Twisting with beautiful grace and power, Jonathan slashed into another warrior, cutting him nearly in two at the midsection. He sliced into another, separating arms from shoulders before plunging his sword through the man’s chest.

  Saric watched, frozen in horrific wonder, as Jonathan summarily slaughtered six of his children without allowing a single blade to touch him.

  Orders rang out. His ranks surged around the boy. Before they could close the circle, Jonathan cut down a seventh and sprang away into open ground. As if executing a carefully choreographed dance, he swept to the pole that held Triphon’s dead body.

  He dropped to one knee and bowed his head in respect to his fallen friend. Long trails of blood from the wound in the Mortal’s gut streaked his belly and legs.

  Jonathan stood and gazed up at the man, face wrenched with sorrow. He reached for one of the bloodied feet, leaned slowly forward, and kissed it. His sob of anguish echoed through the valley, cut short by a plea for all Mortals to hear.

  “He will see life!” Jonathan cried, facing the line of Mortals where their leaders were mounted. “For the sacrifice he paid to save me, I give him life! Leave his body. He will not be buried with the others. As you find life, Triphon will find life.”

  Jonathan spun and pointed the sword at Saric, eyes aflame. He held his position for an extended beat, then ran toward him, hunched low like a sprinter off the blocks.

  Only then did it occur to Saric that the warrior who so easily killed seven of his children might as easily take their Maker who still knelt, immobilized and unarmed.

  Panic flooded his veins. He started to push himself up, but the world around him was spinning.

  And then Jonathan was at the base of the ruins. He took the steps in three long bounds and whirled to face the valley, bloody sword raised.

  “Is there no end to death?” he cried.

  He tossed the sword, sent it clattering to the stones just beyond Saric’s knee.

  He masters not only life, but death.

  Saric turned and stared at the sword, red beneath the darkening sky. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jonathan seize the two poles that held the broken leather bowl. Torment, anguish on his face. He was mad. He was magnificent. Arms spread wide, the boy flung his words at the world.

  “Is there no song without the sword? Is there no love without jealousy? Is there no end to rage?”

  His body began to shake. He rocked back and forth like a man possessed, beyond himself. The clash of battle had stopped, replaced only by the wind, the thunder, and the boy’s broken shouts.

  “Will the children all die? Will the sun be turned red? Will you drain my blood to feed your own ambition? Do I die so you can live?”

  His braids flew back in the face of the storm. Tears streamed from his eyes, blown back toward his temples before they could mar his cheek.

  “Find love!”
he screamed. “Find beauty! Find life and know that the realm of Sovereigns is upon you!”

  A lone voice of objection pierced the valley from far and high. Saric turned his head and saw a lone figure up on the western cliff, arms spread wide. A woman crying out in horror at the scene beneath her.

  “No!” She fell to her knees. “Jonathan!”

  She lifted her chin, drew a deep breath, and hurled a great wail at the sky.

  A helpless sob erupted from the boy, dangling from the poles as though they held him and not the other way around. He stared up at the lone woman, his face twisted with anguish. “For love…” He sucked at the air, a horrible, lurching gasp. “For you, Jordin!”

  Saric felt his mind fracture, broken by the war in his soul.

  These were surely the words of a love saturated with power far greater than any he knew. He could not kill the one destined to bring such life.

  These were surely the words of a power that would render his impotent. He was compelled to destroy the one destined to crush his lesser life.

  Jonathan suddenly grasped his tunic at the neckline with both hands and ripped it wide to bare his chest. His eyes lowered to Saric.

  “Take it!” he screamed, face red and drawn.

  He grabbed the poles again, arms spread wide, his chest bare.

  “Take my life for all of them. Spill my blood and drain it for this world. Take what you have come to take and be forever changed!”

  Saric remained frozen.

  “Obey me,” the boy said in a lower voice that reached into Saric’s mind and shattered the last of his confusion.

  Darkness flooded his vision. He grabbed his sword by the hilt, shoved himself to his feet, and with a full-throated scream, lunged for the boy.

  The blade slashed down across Jonathan’s body, severing his torso nearly in two.

  Jonathan’s eyes went wide. His mouth was parted, midgasp. He stood motionless for a suspended instant before sinking to his knees. Cries from the Mortals drowned out the high keening on the cliff.

  The boy collapsed into a pool of his own blood, a broken heap at Saric’s feet.

  Saric staggered back a step. The sword fell from his hands and with it, the world.

  The ruins began to shake beneath his feet. Wind roared through the valley, threatening to push him to the ground.

  He staggered, struggling to keep his footing beneath the blackened sky. Before his very eyes the valley floor buckled. Large slabs of the far cliff began to slide into the valley. Unrelenting peels of thunder crashed through the heavens, shaking his bones to the core.

  A full half of his children hugged the earth for safety, the other half tried to run, staggering and pitching like a drunken mob. The Mortals’ horses reared and threw their riders to the churning ground.

  Then, as quickly as the quake came, it quieted. The earth rumbled to stillness. Unnatural calm settled over the valley, punctuated only by the rattle of falling stone and whinnying horses.

  With a final whoosh, the vortex in the sky sucked up the dark clouds, returning them to an overcast gray pushed by a gentle breeze.

  Silence.

  What have you done?

  It occurred to Saric that he was still on his feet. Alive. But the moment the thought entered his mind he knew that he was not the same man who’d considered himself alive only moments earlier.

  His thoughts were no longer those he’d entertained before. He’d seen a light in the boy’s eyes. He’d obeyed his commands. He’d submitted to a power that left him crushed for all the world to see.

  Nothing was the same.

  Nothing could ever be the same.

  Shaking badly, Saric walked to the edge of the steps, descended them one at a time, and crossed to a horse whose flesh still quivered with terror. He unsteadily mounted, only vaguely aware that Dark Blood on all sides were rising, some of them taking an unsteady knee at sight of him.

  Varus rode up, face white. “My Lord?”

  Saric avoided his gaze, the questions in his eyes, and pulled his mount around, only vaguely aware of the myriad gazes upon him.

  “What is your command?” Varus said.

  His command? He could not summon the resolve to lead. The boy had cursed him and robbed him of that power. Something had happened to him. The light in the boy’s eyes…

  “My Lord, your orders?”

  “Leave this place,” he said. “No more death.”

  He turned the horse and rode out from the valley under the gazes of his children.

  Behind him a wail rose to the sky. The Mortals were mourning the death of their Sovereign.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  THE WESTERN EDGE OF THE SEYALA VALLEY was filled with midmorning sunlight. Overhead, starlings burst from the trees atop the eastern cliff, too startlingly alive above the ruins below.

  Bahar, the ruins were called. The Spring of Life. They lay broken, shrouded in shadow so that none who looked at them might ever think that life had been granted here.

  And taken.

  Rom squinted across the first stirrings of a camp rising from a night of mourning. Those unable to fight had returned and a few had erected yurts, most of them in the same place they’d stood before, perhaps seeking comfort in familiarity. But all it did was draw the eye of anyone looking to the gaping patches of ground in between. Ground covered not with the dwellings of the living, but the bodies of those dressed now in death.

  Despite the objections of more than a few, Rom had insisted they leave Triphon’s body on the pole, guarded to keep vermin and birds away. Jonathan’s dying demand made little sense even to Rom, but they were all past reason now. When they vacated the valley, nature would consume Triphon’s flesh and leave only a skeleton as its own kind of memorial, a monument of death in this place where life had once reigned.

  Two hundred and thirty-nine Mortals had perished in yesterday’s battle. One hundred and seventy-eight Nomads, sixty-one Keepers. The fallen Nomads lay together in rows, leaving space for the living to move among them—bathing and dressing them, wrapping the disfigured in makeshift shrouds of bedding and canvas. The Keepers lay apart, faces shrouded. Rows of dead warriors, no longer aligned in the formation of battle as one race, now separated by kind in death. Nomad, to the pyre. Keeper, to the ground.

  But it wasn’t the line of dead that drew Rom’s eye again and again. It was the single body wrapped in muslin atop a carefully constructed pallet nearest the ruin steps.

  Jonathan.

  The young girls had come down from the hills with armloads of fragile anemones. The younger children crowded around them—children he recognized as those Jonathan had often run off with to carve their toys as they laughed in the western hilltops. They had covered his body in flowers.

  Too red. Too much like the blood they had carefully collected from the ruin steps and sealed in ceramic jars solemnly provided by the Keeper. The initials on them had been scratched out. The Keeper had kept them for his own burial, to be placed beside the body in acknowledgment of the day that it would be reborn—the ritual of all Keepers.

  A day that would never come.

  Jonathan had died on his eighteenth birthday.

  Rom looked away.

  The previous evening scouts had reported that the bodies of the fallen Dark Bloods on the plateau had been collected by their comrades. No word of Saric. No word of Feyn.

  The Keeper had come to Rom to say he’d run a final test on Jonathan’s blood. Dead, he said. All its extraordinary properties depleted.

  Nine years of hope. Gone.

  Now, as the sun crept toward the steps of the body that lay at the foot of the ruin steps, Rom could feel the eyes of the Mortals upon him. As they loaded the bodies of the fallen onto the horse-drawn pallets the camp was littered with the soft cries of mothers, lovers, and children. The zealots were more stoic than usual, not reciting the names or stories of the ones they lifted onto their horses as was custom. They were exhausted and tense, looking often toward the scouts on
the cliffs, listening for the cry that Saric’s army had returned. But no attack would come. Saric had what he wanted.

  Neither Rom nor Roland spoke as they met on either side of Jonathan’s body, lifted it onto the cart strewn with wildflowers, and set the ceramic jars of his blood beside him. Jordin, eyes swollen from crying, could not be pulled away, as though the charge that Rom had issued her yesterday to never let him out of her sight was one she would carry out forever. Even as Rom mounted his horse and gave the signal for the procession to start, she held on to the rail of the cart, reaching often to touch his shrouded foot.

  Up from the south end of the valley floor, they wound their way into the western foothills toward the plateau. The moment they crested the last rise, Rom half expected to see carrion birds pecking at the eyes and wounds of bodies strewn across the battlefield. But the field was swept clean of the dead. Only the smell of blood remained, saturating earth and air alike.

  A crow to Rom’s right plucked at the dirt. At the far edge of the battlefield, rows of funeral pyres had been built from the dismantled horse pens, the frames of the yurts of the fallen, and wood from the forest. They stretched across the field like a bridge to hereafter.

  Adjacent the pyres, a long grave had been dug for the fallen Keepers. A tunnel to the same destination, wherever that was.

  And there, in front of it all, a single, lone grave. It was to that grave that Rom led the procession with leaden feet.

  Reaching it, he stared the pit, aware of the eyes of the rest on him.

  What was he to say? There would be no Sovereign. No kingdom. Jonathan had not only failed to deliver what he’d promised them, he had destroyed it.

  Rom slowly turned in his saddle to look out at the gathered Mortals. At Jordin, her face crumpling at sight of the grave. At Adah, weeping into her sleeve. At the zealots, staring fixedly as though right through him. The Keeper, pale, his expression terrible for its utter uncertainty. At Roland, beside him, face chiseled in stone.

  He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. His voice was unmistakably hoarse.

  “We mourn the loss of our Sovereign,” he said, and cleared his throat again. “We mourn him as the true Sovereign. The one who was to be. We gave our lives for him. We did it gladly, because he gave us life first.”