Mortal

by Ted Dekker

  The words he would speak next would not be so welcome, but it hardly mattered now. Each Mortal, like him, would make their own decision: to die and live, or to live and die.

  “We who have taken Jonathan’s blood stand before you as the first three Mortals who are Sovereign.”

  Glances and whispers. Roland stood like stone.

  “As Mortals of the Sovereign realm, filled with life greater than any yet tasted.”

  “Greater?” the zealot Seriph said. “And yet you appear the same.”

  “Greater,” Rom replied to the cynical Nomad.

  “Show us.”

  “Are we alive?” Jordin demanded of him, stepping out. “Do I look dead to you?”

  “Does a Corpse appear dead?” Seriph returned.

  “How dare you question what Jonathan has given?” she cried. “You, who would subdue the world with your sword and live a thousand years without knowing true life—is it yours to question his authority?”

  Seriph spread his arms and looked around. He stepped out of line and faced the assembly with a questioning gaze. “Whose authority? Jonathan’s? If he lives, let him speak. Let him tell us that we must die and become tiny Sovereigns without purpose.”

  “He lives!” Jordin said. She slapped her breast, face red. “In here!” She jabbed at her head. “In here!” She thrust her finger back toward the inner sanctum. “Take his blood and know, yourself.”

  “Easy,” Rom muttered under his breath. “They don’t understand.”

  “No,” she said under her breath, glancing at him with strange revelation. “They can’t hear.”

  “They say we don’t hear,” Seriph bit off, face twisting with scorn. “This from a foolish lover as mad as the one whose blood she’s taken. I say let them show us just how deaf we are.”

  Jordin was about to speak again, but Rom lifted a hand and she held her tongue.

  “We will show you,” he said. “But it may take some time.”

  “Time? This while Saric gathers his Dark Bloods to take as many lives again? Show me how to end death and I will gladly take your blood.”

  “What blood?” Roland stared up at Rom. “Are you still a Maker?”

  Rom hadn’t considered the question.

  Roland spoke so that all could hear him. “No? And how much blood is left in the vessels?”

  Rom went quiet. There were only two vessels left.

  “Tell me, Rom, do you still see with Mortal sense?”

  Rom felt his pulse quicken. He looked quickly around with dawning realization. He’d been so caught up in this change that he hadn’t noticed. Did the far cliff seem more distant? Did the sound of the ravens calling overhead come less vibrantly than before?

  Seriph lifted his brows and glanced at Roland so quickly that he nearly missed it.

  And then he knew. The perception to which he’d grown so accustomed… was gone.

  He glanced at Jordin and the Keeper, both whose boldness seemed to have been shaken.

  “Well?”

  He turned back to Roland. “As I said, we don’t know the full extent of the changes. Only that we know more.”

  “More of what? My mind? Can you smell the horses? The stench of blood in the ground? Can you hear as you once heard?”

  Rom was now distinctly certain that he could not.

  “No,” Roland said. “I don’t think you can. But that shouldn’t surprise you. After all, you drank the blood of a Corpse.”

  “You dare call the one who gave you life ‘Corpse’?”

  “I don’t need to,” Roland said. “The Keeper can make the case.” His eyes swiveled to the Keeper. “Tell them, old man.”

  The Book blinked.

  “Tell them the secret of Jonathan’s blood in his last days. Tell them what Rom insisted we keep from the people.”

  “What is this?” the councilwoman Zara demanded.

  When the Keeper still said nothing, Roland strode up the first three steps of the ruined Temple. Not far from his foot was a dark fissure that had not been there just days ago.

  “Wasn’t it true that in his last days, Jonathan’s blood reverted to that of a Corpse? That when he died, his blood had lost all of the Mortal powers we yet possess? That from your own testing Jonathan had, in fact, become a Corpse? Tell them, old man!”

  Murmurs punctuated by cries of outrage spread through the crowd.

  “We don’t know,” the Keeper said.

  “You don’t know? But your tests were clear—you said so yourself.” He turned back to face the assembly. “Jonathan’s blood had reverted.”

  “Our tests cannot—”

  “And yet you claim to have more knowledge than me. Jonathan died a Corpse. And now the question I would ask is: are you, too, Corpse as well? Carelessly, perhaps maliciously calling us to join you in death as our own enemies might?”

  “How dare you speak this to your leader?” the Book rasped. “Do we smell like Corpses to you?”

  Roland ignored the charge. “Then prove this new life of yours!” he shouted, hurling the challenge like a gauntlet.

  “Prove how?” Book cried. “Rom has made the point clear, we don’t yet know what new powers we may or may not have. The fact that each of us stands before you changed is testament enough!”

  “Spoken out of desperation,” Roland snarled. “You have lost the endless life all Mortals have. You expect us to die for this hope?”

  Sanath, a woman in her fifties, maneuvered through the crowd, pushing a cart laden with the body of her husband, Philip, a Nomadic archer who’d been slashed in his chest during the battle and struggled to hold on to life.

  Staring up at Rom with tear-filled eyes, she wheeled the body to the foot of the steps. One glance at Philip’s still form, and Rom knew that he’d passed during the early morning hours.

  “You offer life?” Sanath said, her voice breaking. “Please! Give this life to my husband.”

  Rom felt a lump gather in his throat. “Sanath… I don’t think—”

  “You offer life!” Sanath cried, shoving her finger at Rom. “Then bring my husband back!”

  “A reasonable request,” Seriph said. “Bring him back for all to see. Or have you lost your conviction?”

  Without prompting, the old Keeper spun and marched back into the inner sanctum.

  Seriph stood with a triumphant lift of his chin. Rom understood why.

  Book emerged a moment later carrying a stent and the vessel with Jonathan’s blood. He hurried down the steps, jaw set. Making no attempt to offer argument, he unceremoniously slipped the stent into the vein on Philip’s right arm. Opened the valve.

  They’d all seen similar scenes a hundred times. The precious blood seeped into the lifeless body for ten seconds. To bring life or to be wasted they could not know, but there was far too little blood to be used carelessly.

  “Enough,” Jordin said. She clearly shared Rom’s concerns.

  Casting a glance back at her, the Keeper withdrew the stent, shoved it in his pocket, and retreated up the steps, stowing the prized vessel of blood beneath his cloak.

  All eyes were on Philip’s lifeless body. Ten seconds passed. A child asked her mother what was happening, only to be hushed.

  “How long does it take?” Sanath demanded, face drawn with anxiety.

  Rom nodded at her. “Give it more time.”

  But more time wasn’t going to help. With each passing second, Rom’s certainty that they’d wasted the valuable blood grew.

  “It’s not working?” Sanath said, fresh tears wetting her cheeks. “It’s not working. Oh, my Philip!”

  “No, Sanath,” Roland said, moving toward her. He placed a hand on her arm. “We will honor Philip as a great man among all Nomads.” He faced Rom wearing a bitter stare. “For a thousand years we will honor him.”

  Sanath sank to her knees, lowered her head to her husband’s chest, and began to wail. Roland motioned several nearby to help. They held Sanath up beneath the arms and led her away, the cart cl
ose behind. Death was an ugly sight.

  The gathered Mortals now looked at Rom with vacant eyes. He was about to offer the possible explanation that rescue from true death was not what Jonathan had in mind when Jordin drew close.

  “Triphon!” she whispered.

  He glanced at her.

  Triphon. Sudden understanding. Could Jonathan have intended this? Did they have enough blood to try it?

  “Bring him,” he whispered.

  Jordin hurried away, calling to several others to assist her. After some hesitation and a backward glance, they followed her around to the side where Triphon’s body had been moved.

  Rom faced the Mortals. “Jonathan’s blood clearly wasn’t meant to bring life to the deceased—we know that now. But this doesn’t rob his blood of the power I have known. Many of you saw Triphon die, the rest have seen his body hanging as demanded by Jonathan…”

  “This is absurd,” Roland said. “You would defile a second warrior out of desperation?”

  “Triphon is not a Nomad!” Rom returned. “He was my friend, who died to save Jonathan. He would not object.”

  To the crowd: “Do any oppose?”

  No one spoke.

  “Then we give him Jonathan’s blood.”

  Jordin and the others came around the corner bearing the stiff, blood-caked body of their friend. Carefully, the made their way up the steps, laying him on the topmost one.

  Rom looked at the old Keeper and nodded. “Do it.”

  With a nod, the Book once again inserted stent into vein; once again opened the valve. Once again Jonathan’s blood flowed into a lifeless body, this one dead three days.

  Once again the Keeper stepped back, the jar far lighter in his hands than before. This time there were grumblings of protest when Triphon’s body gave no sign of life after a full ten seconds.

  Rom’s heart began to fall.

  “Give it more time!” Jordin hissed.

  Fifteen seconds passed. Another ten. Roland turned challenging eyes on Rom.

  “More time? How long does this blood require to work its magic? An hour? A day? A month? Are we all to die in the waiting?”

  Rom opened his mouth to respond, but stopped at gasps from the gathered Mortals. The stares—not at him, but at the step.

  Triphon’s body had begun to shake. Cries rang out as his torso suddenly arched up from the stone.

  Rom leapt down to the step and grabbed Triphon’s trembling leg to keep him from rolling down the ancient stair. His friend’s mouth snapped wide and he began to scream. The hoarse cry sent those closest below scurrying back—others rushing forward.

  And then Triphon’s mouth snapped shut and his body collapsed back onto the step. He lay still.

  “Is he still dead?” someone asked.

  As if in answer, Triphon sat up, eyes wide.

  Silence. But Rom’s heart was pounding as loudly in his chest as Triphon’s surely was in his own.

  With a look of bewilderment, his friend turned his head and stared at the crowd. They stared back, aghast.

  Triphon dropped his feet to a lower step, stood, and shook his head.

  “I’ve just had the strangest dream.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE CELEBRATION OF TRIPHON’S RISING filled the valley with wild cries of jubilation and shouts of wonder, and in good form Triphon, learning what had happened, proceeded to give them all full assurance that he was indeed alive. First with raised fists and cries of victory, then with a clumsy dance on the top step.

  Encouraged by laughter and jumping children eager for joy in a world otherwise turned to gloom, he danced again and then again, laughing and shouting with them all.

  “I’m alive!” he shouted. “I am not dead!”

  “He’s alive!” the children cried. “Triphon is not dead!”

  Rom watched it all, heart bursting with gratitude. Book kept mumbling his approval between shakes of his head, giving way at last to the grin of a man decades younger. Jordin stood to one side, stoic as was her way, her eyes bright. This was, after all, her Jonathan’s doing. And evidence of his life in Triphon meant only one thing: that Jonathan lived, still.

  Triphon’s rising was the first sign of hope the Mortals had seen in three days, and in the wake of so much heartache, most embraced it with astonishment if also with uncertainty.

  What did it mean? Why hadn’t Jonathan’s blood brought Philip back to life? Clearly, Jonathan had chosen Triphon as a sign of his blood’s power.

  What was that power? Why had the Mortal sense left those who’d taken Jonathan’s resurrected blood?

  None of this was lost on the leaders of the Nomads, who watched with open interest at first, some of them shouting along with the children, only to give way to subdued glances as Roland stood his ground.

  The prince let them carry on for ten minutes as dozens hurled questions and conjectures without clear answers. Only then did he ascend the first three steps and turn to gather their attention.

  Silence settled over the assembled once again. His authority was a thing to behold, Rom thought. Right or wrong, the man had earned his leadership, perhaps more so than he.

  “So, we have all seen that Jonathan had great power and for that we will revere him forever. It’s a reason to celebrate. He gave us all life, did he not?”

  Voices of agreement rippled through the Mortals.

  “He gave us emotion and Mortal perception and with it the unequivocal ability to distinguish life from death.”

  “So it is…,” they said.

  “And before he died, Jonathan gave us one parting gift to remind us of the power he granted each of us.” His arms swept to Triphon, who stood on the top step, still half naked, streaked with dried blood. “Triphon is that gift!”

  Cheers rose in thundering accord.

  “While he lived, Jonathan demonstrated his power to command the very skies. I believe Triphon is alive because Jonathan kissed his feet and gave him special blessing. Is this not so?”

  No one could deny what stood before them.

  Roland continued. “But, the blood did not return life to Philip. Nor will it to any others who lay in their graves. I’m eternally grateful to Jonathan, as Triphon will no doubt be. But we cannot assume the power of his blood any longer. Jonathan himself is dead. His blood died before Saric claimed his life. I daresay Rom has less life now than you or I.”

  Anticipation turned to confusion on the faces of nearly a thousand. Voices mumbled questions and objection, uneager for such hopeless speculation.

  Roland walked up the remaining steps to the platform and addressed the assembly as one accustomed to undeniable authority.

  “Jonathan birthed in all of us the making of a new race, empowered in ways humans could only have dreamed of before. We will live for centuries. We were made to rule this earth. That is Jonathan’s truest and greatest gift. That is his sign.”

  He glanced at Rom. “Now come three of our own who have climbed from the crypt insisting they, not we, possess life. Let them prove it. We test their blood. If they still have the powers granted to us by Jonathan, we listen. If they don’t… each one must make their own choice. But know that I will follow no man back into the grave from which I came.”

  He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small clear vessel, which Rom immediately recognized as belonging to the Keeper, and held it up between his thumb and forefinger. An ounce or two of amber liquid filled the capsule halfway.

  And so Roland’s obsession with extended life had already been at work. He would need alchemy to monitor life among his own kind if they parted ways.

  The Keeper’s eyes widened. “Where—”

  “Is it not true that by dropping only a drop of blood in this elixir of yours, you can estimate by the color it turns how long a man might live?”

  “It’s no elixir.”

  “That the darker it turns, the longer the life?”

  The Keeper mumbled a response filled with the jargon of alchemy.
/>   “Be plain, old man. Is it true or do I lie?”

  The Book hesitated, the set of his mouth grim before he said, “In general terms, however inexact of a science, yes.”

  “Good.”

  Without ceremony, Roland pulled out his knife and cut his thumb. He opened the vessel, tossed the cork down the steps, held the amber liquid out for all to see, and squeezed two drops of his blood into the liquid.

  The red drops sank to the bottom leaving bloody trails. As they watched, the amber fluid quickly turned dark.

  “Black,” Roland said, showing the crowd. “The Keeper says we might live as long as a thousand years with the blood in our veins. Here, then, is proof.”

  Rom heard it all with only a little apprehension. Regardless of this test, knowledge lived in him like a breathing being. Light had blossomed in his mind like a white-hot sun. How he would show that light or to what end, he didn’t yet know, but he knew.

  Yet Roland would have his day. The prince withdrew a second, identical vessel from his jacket, uncorked it, and approached Rom.

  “Show us.”

  Rom stared into the prince’s eyes and knew with certainty that the man’s mind was set, regardless of the test’s outcome. He offered Roland a conciliatory nod and held out his hand for the knife.

  Without pause, Rom nicked his own thumb. He squeezed two drops of blood into the vessel.

  The blood slowly sank to the bottom. Settled to form a thin layer of red. They waited for the change.

  None came. The liquid remained amber except for a thin cloud of red blood that rose from the bottom.

  Roland turned to the Keeper. “Does this look like the blood of a Mortal?”

  The Keeper’s only response was the sudden pallor of his expression.

  “No,” Roland said. He dropped the vessel on the stone, where it shattered. “I didn’t think so. You, old man, will live only a handful of years if you’re lucky.”