Forbidden

by Ted Dekker

  Neah’s skin crawled at the sound of the voice, the off-kilter cries behind them. Another voice took up the cry, and another, until they were all shrieking, “That way!”

  Rom and Neah burst into a corridor lit by a single torch. Rom grabbed it. “Come on!”

  Tears obscured Neah’s vision, sent the fiery light of the torch in Rom’s hand into fractured orange splinters. Her willingness to help Rom had turned into a nightmare. Waiting for Rom, she’d ventured a short way into the lab and seen it all: women, caged like animals, mad and raving. Bodies, laid out for experiments…

  The dead, horrifically laid open. If she and Rom were caught, would she end up there?

  They came to a large chamber. Rom held the torch up, illuminating stacks of books and myriad documents all crammed onto shelves built into sliding partition walls.

  “The archive,” she gasped, wanting to weep her relief. “We’re in the archive. There should be a way up from here.”

  They found the small door on the near wall unlocked, its metal handle shiny and smooth from use. It led out to a landing at the foot of a narrow set of stairs, which they took two at a time before crashing into a door at the top. Rom twisted the knob.

  “Locked,” he panted.

  Neah fell against it, wanting to beat it down.

  “The key. The key, Neah!”

  She remembered it now, fumbled to get it out of her pocket, and dropped it.

  “Hurry!”

  She fell to her knees and groped beneath the light of Rom’s torch with shaking hands, found it. The sounds of pursuit issued up from the chamber.

  She stood, thrust the key home, wrenched it hard, shoved the door wide, and burst through. Rom grabbed the key and slammed the door closed behind them.

  “Lock it!” she ordered. He did so, quickly. “They might have a key of their own!”

  “We’re not waiting to find out,” Rom said.

  Together they ran through a great hall filled with richly appointed chairs, including a throne of sorts overlooking the round mosaic on the floor in the center of them all.

  Neah glanced up at the vaulted ceiling. They had come up in the Senate Hall.

  “Follow me,” she whispered, running past Rom.

  They ran out a small side entrance, past a set of heavy doors into a smaller chamber where the senators donned their robes for session.

  Relief swept over Neah. She knew the back ways from here. They could be out of the Citadel in less than a minute.

  “Come on!”

  Rom grabbed her arm and pulled her up short.

  “Neah—”

  “We have to go!”

  “No.”

  She slapped his hand away. “What do you mean, no?”

  “We have to find Feyn.”

  She stared. Surely, she hadn’t heard right.

  “What? Don’t be crazy! We have to get out of here now!” She wanted to hit him, to shake him.

  “The keeper told me I have to find her.”

  “That man down there? He was insane!” The image of the body on the worktable burned in her mind.

  Rom shook his head. “No. He wasn’t. He knew my father. It’s all real. And it isn’t about us anymore.”

  “It isn’t about Feyn, either. We’ll be dead if we don’t get out now!”

  “She’s a mathematician.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “The old man—”

  “I don’t care what the old man told you. If we don’t survive the night, none of this will matter!”

  Footsteps echoed through the empty Senate Hall beyond the door. Rom pulled her into the shadows as the guards ran past the antechamber, through the senate’s great arched entry, and out into the main arcade.

  “You go,” he whispered when they had passed. “Tell Avra what happened. If I’m not back by dawn, leave the city with the others.”

  “Rom, please!” She couldn’t tell him she was afraid to leave by herself, to get on that underground train, to confront a world that she wasn’t sure had any true refuge in it. She felt herself on the verge of a breakdown. “You’re just an artisan. Nobody! What can you do? For all we know, Feyn’s not even here. All Sovereigns go to the country during the last days before their inauguration. She’ll go to Palatia.”

  “You didn’t hear what the keeper had to say. Neah, they’ve given their lives for this.”

  “It’s not your problem!”

  She couldn’t believe this. She had agreed to help him learn more so that he could get them out of this predicament. That was all!

  “It is my problem. You didn’t hear him, or you’d understand. I’ll explain it all later. Just please, tell me where I can find her. That’s all I’m asking.”

  He really meant to stay. She could tell from the look in his eyes there was no way she’d get him to leave. After staring at him for an incredulous moment, she went to a door and yanked it open. It was the only way she could think of to help him, and even then she doubted he could survive.

  “Hide in this robe closet and wait until everyone’s gone. Across the arcade at the end of the corridor is a service elevator. Take it all the way to the top. Some of the Citadel artists keep studios there, in the attic space. Once you get past them, you’ll be in the attic over the residences. Feyn’s residence is the last one.”

  “The last? But I’ll be in the attic?”

  “Above her residence at the end.”

  “How do I find her?”

  “If she’s still here, I’m guessing she’ll be sleeping in her room.”

  “But I’ll be in the attic!” he said.

  “Well you can’t very well walk in through her door now, can you? You’ll have to figure it out from there. And for the record I think you’ve lost your mind.”

  He looked off into the darkness.

  “If you get caught, there’s nothing I can do,” she said.

  “Give me your cloak.”

  “What for?”

  “Just give it to me. Please.” He reached out for it.

  “It’s raining out—”

  “I’m going to need it more than you will.”

  She pulled off her cloak and shoved it at him. He took it and stepped in among the robes.

  “Tell Avra I’ll be back at first light.”

  She wanted to slap him, to tell him that he was a fool.

  To also tell him that he was brave, braver than she would ever be. That Avra might even be lucky.

  But mostly, that he was an imbecile.

  She turned and stepped out of the closet. “You don’t have all night. This place will be filled with people in five hours.”

  Neah closed the door before he could say anything, smoothed her cardigan, and walked through the antechamber doors into the Senate Hall.

  No sign of the guards. She was going to make it.

  “Who goes?”

  She spun to the voice and saw that two guards had entered through the main doors.

  “Who goes?” the guard repeated.

  “I go,” she snapped. “On royal business for Lucius. And what are you doing in the senate chambers so late? It’s off limits!” She’d never been questioned when citing her overseer, but now her heart was beating so frenetically she thought she might faint in front of them.

  The guards walked forward, scanning the chamber, unaffected by her scolding. “Have you seen two people run this way? Two, both in robes.”

  “I’ve seen only two guards and now I’m thinking I should report you.”

  The first guard pushed past her and stepped through the door into the antechamber. The second caught the door and went after him.

  They were going to find Rom. For a moment she considered making an attempt to distract them further. But the thought fled when she heard the faint squeal of the closet door inside.

  The closet where Rom was hiding.

  Without a second thought, Neah spun on her heel and ran. There was nothing she could do now. If she stayed they would only
take her, too, and she’d be down in the dungeons with its terrors.

  She ran all the way to the side gate before slowing enough to calm her breathing.

  She flashed her badge at the main gate, trying to gauge how far she had to get before she could run again, before she could get home and warn the others. They had Rom. It didn’t matter that he had the blood. They would torture him into talking, surely. They would spread him out on one of those metal tables and cut him open until he screamed all he knew.

  And then the Citadel Guard would come for the rest of them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He left the priest’s robe inside the closet and slipped out of the antechamber just before the guards closed in from the other set of doors. Without the robe to identify him as the intruder, Rom made his way unnoticed to the service elevator and up to the attic as Neah had instructed.

  The studios in the attic were divided by the upper level’s unfinished wood framing, and he could pass easily from one to the next. Paintings and sculpture were littered everywhere, a veritable wealth of art. It was all fine stuff, proficient to the point of mathematical perfection, no doubt created by the best artisans the Citadel could afford.

  It was the artwork in the third studio that quickened his heart.

  These were not new works. In fact, they appeared ancient, in which case they should have been destroyed at Null Year. But here they remained, in various stages of repair and restoration. He shifted Neah’s cloak in his hands and touched one of them, marveling at the texture of the paint, at the faces twisted in torture and in ecstasy peering out from the canvas. If these were from the Age of Chaos, they were forbidden. And yet here they were in the Citadel itself.

  He had to force himself to leave them, to hurry through the last studio, where he grabbed a sculptor’s hammer and chisel from a table next to an ancient bust.

  At the end, Neah had said. He stepped past the area of finished floor onto an ancient beam and eased down its length into the shadows beyond the lights of the last studio. All the way to the gable wall fifty paces on.

  If what Neah said was right, Feyn’s residence was directly beneath him. Now the question was simply one of where to gain entrance. And how.

  The ceiling beneath the wood framing was plaster, so breaking through wouldn’t be a problem. But doing so without being discovered would be nearly impossible. Anyone sleeping directly below would undoubtedly wake at the first pound of his hammer. By the time he finally broke through, a dozen guards would be settled in to welcome him.

  His mind skipped back to Neah. To Avra, waiting for him. He was probably a fool not to have escaped while he could. Standing there on that wooden beam, thinking through his options, Rom was sure of it.

  It wasn’t too late to join Neah. He could retrace his steps and probably flee the Citadel without getting caught. He could run, as he had before, and take Avra out of Byzantium, beyond the city the way she had wanted him to from the beginning. With Triphon’s help, they might all survive.

  He had no delusions about his chances here. He would likely get caught, might even end up in the dungeons he’d just left.

  If they let him live.

  The keeper’s voice rang out in his mind. Find the boy, Rom, son of Elias!

  It took him ten minutes to decide which area of the ceiling was the right size and location for a closet. He found one framed eight paces to a side, large enough for anyone else’s bedroom, but the smallest space he could see without pipes rising out of it, which would have indicated a bathroom instead.

  The ventilation was poor. Sweat streamed down his chest as he stood at the corner of the space and prayed that it was a closet.

  Balancing on adjacent beams, he raised the hammer. This was it, then. He’d fled Hades these last two days. The time had come to throw himself headlong into the fire.

  With a single swing of the hammer, the ancient plaster cracked and a ten-inch section fell away. Rom caught his breath and waited for the material to rain through to the floor below, for a subsequent scream and the appearance of outraged faces.

  Darkness. Nothing. But they could be coming. He had to get through, fast, and hide.

  He set the hammer aside, content to keep the chisel in his pocket for now, braced one foot on the adjacent rafter, and drove his other heel through the plaster. A big chunk broke away.

  All was still silent and dark beneath. He grabbed Neah’s cloak from the floorboards, swung down on the rafter, dangled through the hole in the ceiling, and dropped.

  Onto a soft rug. He glanced up. The jagged hole he had just come through was outlined by the faint light beyond.

  Rom scanned the area and found himself facing a long row of velvet and silk robes. The scent of sandalwood and some kind of perfume lingered everywhere. An entire wall was filled with myriad shelves of leather boots and brocade slippers.

  This could be the wardrobe of only one person on earth.

  He found the door, poked his head out into a hallway, and slipped out, grateful for the faint light emanating from another room down the hall.

  The apartment beyond was huge. Hangings on the walls hovered like specters as he moved past a small dressing table out into the expansive bedroom.

  The drapes were open to a gray sky, allowing enough light in for him to see the lay of the room. A sitting area near the window. A wide bed. A form was lying there, alone. And asleep.

  Rom crossed quickly toward the bed, wondering what exactly he was supposed to say.

  Hi. My name’s Rom.

  It was a decision he never had to make; his foot caught against the edge of a rug and he stumbled forward into the mattress.

  The form in bed jerked up with a gasp. “Who’s that?”

  “Sorry—”

  Sorry?

  The woman, whom he could only assume was Feyn herself, cried out and scooted away from him.

  Rom lunged for her, forcing her back into the pillows. His palm found her mouth and cut short the sound of her scream.

  “Please! Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you, I swear!”

  She struggled under him, kicking and twisting in a frantic attempt to be free of him.

  It occurred to him then that she was probably trained in the ceremonial art of fighting at least and would likely throw him from the bed if he didn’t find a way past her fear.

  “Shhh, shhh. Forgive me, lady. Please. I need your help, I won’t hurt you. I just need your help.”

  She nearly wrenched free except that her nightdress seemed to be caught under his weight beneath the heavy blankets.

  “I’m not here to hurt you. Please, you have to believe me. I was told to find you, told by an old man in the dungeons here. Please!”

  That stopped her. She lay breathing hard through her nose, eyes wide, searching his face in the darkness.

  Rom went on between labored breaths: “He said you’d be able to give me answers. I’ve risked everything to come here. They’ve killed my mother, my father, and an old man to suppress what I now know. Please don’t scream—I need your help.”

  He realized the keeper had been right. He would risk everything. His life was over. He could never go back. But that life had been a half life. Somehow, he had always known it. And now that he understood the difference, he would devote all that remained of this life to seeing his mission—whatever this five-hundred-year-old secret was—through. Whatever it took.

  Even if he had to knock the future Sovereign out to keep her quiet.

  Perhaps she sensed that in him, because she quieted.

  “Do you believe me?” he said. Silence. “If you won’t scream I’ll let go. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” She remained very still.

  “You won’t scream?”

  A slight shake of her head.

  He slowly moved his hand. She started to scream.

  Rom clamped down hard over her mouth. “You said you wouldn’t scream!”

  She jerked and he knew that he would have to resort to the chis
el in his pocket. It took him a moment to get it free.

  “I have a blade!” He lifted the chisel in his fist. “I don’t want to cut you, but you’re forcing me! Please, be quiet!”

  Her breathing, ragged and erratic, filled the room. There was a very real chance he was going to Hades.

  “I’ll free your mouth, but you have to remain calm. Not a word. I just want to ask you some questions. That’s it. And only because the keeper told me I had to find you, do you understand?”

  Finally, she nodded.

  “I’m going to let go again. But don’t think I won’t hurt you if I have to. What I have to talk to you about is critical.”

  Again she nodded.

  Slowly, he removed his hand, ready to smother her mouth at the first sign she’d played him. Her eyes flitted to the chisel in his hand, then back to his eyes. Calm seemed to settle over her.

  “This is madness,” she said. “You’ll be dead within the hour. Do you know who I am?” She sounded young, perhaps his own age. That surprised him.

  “It’s why I’m here! And I’m committed to seeing this through, you need to know that.”

  “You’re the fugitive who’s been in the newspaper,” she said. “If you think this kind of approach will get any cooperation from me, you’re a fool.”

  Heat spread over Rom’s face as the truth of her statement sank home. The guards were still searching for him. As soon as Feyn realized that he wasn’t a trained fighter and that he didn’t really have the resolve to hurt her—certainly not with a chisel—she would scream again.

  He set the chisel on the coverlet and fumbled to pull the vellum from his pocket.

  “See this?” he said, trying to shake it open, to hold it up before her. “I need to know what this means. This is what I’m here for. The old man said you could read it. It’s important—not just to me, but to the world. You’ll see. Tell me what it means and I promise I’ll leave.”

  She barely glanced at it.

  “That old man is mad. And you’re as mad as he is if you think I’m going to help you.”

  Rom realized he couldn’t risk trying to persuade her here, where his mission could so easily come to an abrupt end.

  He had to get her out.

  “When you hear me out, you’ll retract those words.” He shoved the vellum into his pocket, grabbed the chisel.