by Ted Dekker
Thomas stepped cautiously onto the bridge. The Shataiki made no move, so Thomas stepped up the Crossing toward the beast. He stopped five meters from the Shataiki and looked directly into his eyes. They glistened like giant emeralds in the moonlight. A chill ran down Thomas’s spine. He had to be the one called Teeleh. But he wasn’t what Thomas had expected.
The creature let his shoulders droop and turned his head slightly. He retracted his talons and allowed a gentle smile to form on his snout.
“Welcome, my friend. I had hoped you would come.” Now he spoke plainly, in a low voice without a hint of music. “I know this may all seem a little overpowering to you. But please, ignore them. They are imbeciles who have no mind.”
“Who?” Thomas said. But it came out like a grunt so he said it again. “Who?”
“The sick, demented creatures behind me.” The beautiful bat withdrew a red fruit from behind his back and offered it to Thomas. “Here, my friend, have a fruit.”
Thomas looked at the fruit, too terrified to move any closer to the beast, much less reach out to take something from it.
“But of course. You are still frightened, aren’t you? Pity. It is one of our best.” The Shataiki raised the fruit to his lips without removing his eyes from Thomas and bit deeply into its flesh. A stream of juice dribbled through his furry chin and spotted the planks at his feet. “Possibly our very best. Certainly the most powerful.” He smacked his lips. He lifted his chin to swallow the fruit and tucked the uneaten portion behind his back again.
He withdrew a small pouch. “Are you thirsty?”
“No, thanks.”
“Not thirsty. I understand. We’ll have plenty of time for eating and drinking later, won’t we?”
Thomas began to relax a little. “I didn’t come to eat or drink.” Was it possible Teeleh could be a friend to him? The creature certainly disapproved of the other black bats. “How did you know I was coming?”
“I have powers you can’t imagine, my friend. To know you were coming was nothing. I have legions at my disposal. Do you think I don’t know who comes and who goes? I think you underestimate me.”
“If you have such power, then why do you live in the black trees instead of in the colored forest?” Thomas asked, looking past the beast at the throngs milling in the trees across the river.
“The colored forest, you call it? And who in their right mind would want to live in the colored forest? You think their fruit can compare with my fruit? No. Is their water any sweeter than ours? Less. They are nothing but slaves.”
Thomas shifted on his feet. There was only one rule here. No matter what happened, he could never drink the water. As long as he followed that simple standard, he would be perfectly safe.
“What is that in your pocket?” the bat suddenly demanded.
Thomas reached into his pocket and withdrew the small glowing carving that Johan had handed him in the village.
Teeleh recoiled. “Throw it over the side. Throw it over!”
Thomas reacted without thought. He tossed the red lion over the edge of the bridge and gripped the rail to steady himself.
Slowly Teeleh lowered his arm and stared at Thomas with his wide, green eyes.
“It is poison to us,” the beast said.
“I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. They have deceived you.”
Thomas let the statement go. “What do they call you?” he asked.
“What does who call me?” the beast asked.
“Them.” Thomas nodded at the bats.
The Shataiki raised his chin. “I am called Teeleh.”
“Teeleh.” He’d expected nothing else. “You’re the leader of the Shataiki.”
“Foolish minds may call what they do not know whatever they wish. But I am the ruler of a thousand legions of subjects in a land full of mystery and power. This they call the black forest.” The black bat swung a huge wing toward the forest behind him. “But I call it my kingdom. Which is why I’ve come to speak to you. To set your mind free. There are some things you should know.”
Thomas could hardly ignore the obvious fact that the creature wanted something from him. This show of power couldn’t be arbitrary. But he had no intention of giving them anything. He’d come for one purpose only, to gather some information about the histories.
Despite his confusion over the true nature of this creature, Thomas couldn’t allow Teeleh to gain the upper hand.
“And there are some things that you should know as well,” Thomas said. “It’s forbidden for me to drink your water, and I have no intention of doing it. Please don’t waste your time.”
Teeleh’s eyes brightened. “Forbidden, you say? Who can forbid another man to do anything? No, my friend. No one is forbidden unless he chooses to be forbidden.” The Shataiki spoke fluidly, as though he’d argued the subject a thousand times. “What better way to keep someone from experiencing my power than to say he will suffer if he drinks the water? Lies. Surely you, more than the rest, should know that such small-minded talk only locks people in cages of stupidity. They follow a god who demands their allegiance and robs them of their freedom. Forbidden? Who has the right to forbid?”
The reasoning was compelling. But it had to be fast talk. Thomas chose his next words carefully. “I also know that if even one of us drinks your water, the whole land will be turned over to those sick, demented creatures, as you call them, and we will become your slaves.”
The air suddenly filled with angry snarls of outrage from the army of Shataiki in the trees. Startled by the outcry, Thomas retreated a step.
“Silence!” Teeleh thundered. His voice echoed with such force that Thomas instinctively ducked.
The beast dipped its head. “Forgive them, my friend. I don’t think you would blame them if you knew what they have been through. When you have lived through deception and tyranny and you survive, you tend to overreact to the slightest reminder of that tyranny. And believe me, those behind me have faced the greatest form of deception and abuse known to living souls.” He paused and twitched his head as though he were trying to loosen a stiff neck.
In many ways the Shataiki’s actions were consistent with creatures who’d been abused and imprisoned. Thomas felt a sliver of pity run through his heart. For such a beautiful creature as Teeleh to be imprisoned in the black forest seemed unjust.
“Now come,” Teeleh said. “You must surely know that the myths you speak of are designed to deceive the people of the colored forest— to control their allegiance. You think you know, but what you’ve been told is the greatest kind of deception. And I’ve come to make that clear to you.”
Did Teeleh know that he’d lost his memory?
“Why did you try to kill me?” he asked.
“I would never do such a thing.”
“I was in your forest and barely got out alive. If I hadn’t made the Crossing when I did, I would be dead now.”
“But you didn’t have my protection,” the beast said. “They mistook you for one of them.”
“Them?”
“Surely you don’t actually believe that you’re one of them, do you? How quaint. And clever, I might add. They’re actually using your memory loss against you, aren’t they? Typical. Always deceiving.”
So he did know about the memory loss. What else did he know?
“How did you know about the memory loss?” Thomas asked.
“Bill told me,” the creature said. “You do remember Bill, don’t you?”
“Bill?”
“Yes, Bill. The redhead who came here with you.”
Thomas took a step back. The creature before him shifted out of focus. “Bill is real?”
“Of course he’s real. You’re real. If you’re real, then Bill’s real. You both came from the same place.”
Thomas couldn’t mistake the sense that he was standing at the edge of a whole new world of understanding. He’d come with a few questions about the histories, and yet before asking those questions, a hundr
ed others had been deposited in his mind.
He glanced back at the colored forest. What did he really know? Only what the others had told him. Nothing more. Was it possible that he had it all wrong?
His heart thumped in his chest. The air suddenly felt too thick to breathe. Easy. Easy, Thomas. He couldn’t reveal his ignorance.
“Okay, so you know about Bill. Tell me about him. Tell me where we came from.”
“You still don’t remember?”
He eyed the bat circumspectly. “I remember some things. But I’ll keep those to myself. You tell me what you know, and we’ll see if that matches what I remember. Say the wrong thing, and I’ll know you’re lying.”
The smile faded from Teeleh’s lips. “You came from Earth.”
“Earth. This is Earth. Be more specific.”
Teeleh regarded him with a long stare. “You really don’t know, do you? You’re a sharp one, I’ll give you that, but you just don’t know.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Thomas said, careful to keep anxiety out of his voice.
“Don’t be so sure that you’re sharp? Or that you know?”
“Just tell me.”
“You and your copilot, Bill, crashed less than a mile behind me,” Teeleh said. “Which is why I’m here. I think I’ve found a way back.”
It was all Thomas could do to hide his incredulity. What a preposterous suggestion! It actually eased his tension. If Teeleh was stupid enough to think he’d fall for such a ridiculous fabrication, he was much less an opponent than Michal had suggested. Hopefully the bat still knew the histories.
For now he would play along, see how far this creature would take the story.
“So. You know about Bill and the spaceship. What else do you know?”
“I know that you think the spaceship is preposterous because you really don’t remember a thing.”
Thomas blinked. “Is that so?”
“The truth of it is this: You are stranded on a distant planet. Your ship, Discovery III, crashed three days ago. You lost your memory in the impact. You’re standing on this bridge talking to me because you don’t fit in with the simpletons in the colored forest, which is natural. You don’t.”
Thomas’s ears were burning. He wondered if this creature could see that as well.
He cleared his throat. “What else?”
“It’s good to hear, isn’t it? The truth. Unlike the pitifully deceived people of the colored forest, I will tell you only the truth.”
“Fine. Tell me the truth then.”
“My, my, we are hungry. The truth is, if you knew what I know about that colored forest and those who live in it, you would despise them.”
The throngs of Shataiki had lost their respect for the silence. A sea of voices muttered and squealed under their collective breath. Somewhere in the darkness, Thomas could just hear a dozen arguments raging in high pitch.
“We have been imprisoned in this forsaken forest,” Teeleh said. “That is the truth. For a Shataiki to touch the land across this river means instant death. It is tyranny.”
The throngs of bats screeched their outrage.
Teeleh lifted a wing.
Quiet fell over the forest like a blanket of fog.
“They make me ill,” Teeleh muttered. He looked back to make sure his legions were in order.
“What about the histories?” Thomas asked. The question he’d come to ask sounded out of balance in this new realm of truth.
“The histories. Yes, of course. I suppose you’re dreaming of the histories, are you?”
“They’re real? How can there be histories of Earth if this isn’t Earth?”
The question seemed to set the big bat back. “Clever. Very clever. How can we have histories of Earth if we aren’t on Earth?”
“And how do you know I’m dreaming of the histories?”
“I know you’re dreaming because I’ve drunk the water in the black forest. Knowledge. The histories of Earth are really the future of Earth. To you, they’re history, because you’ve tasted some fruit from the forest behind me. You’re seeing into the future.”
The revelation was stunning. Thomas didn’t remember eating any fruit. Perhaps before he hit his head on the rock? In its own way it made perfect sense. And there was a way to test this assertion.
“Fair enough,” Thomas said. “Then you should be able to tell me what happens in this future. Tell me about the Raison Strain.”
“The Raison Strain. Of course. One of humanity’s most telling periods. Before the Great Tribulation. Often called the Great Deception. I’ll speak of it as history. It was a vaccine that mutated into a virus under extreme heat.”
Teeleh licked his lips delectably. “Nobody would have ever known, you know. The vaccine never would have mutated because no natural cause would ever produce a heat high enough to trigger the mutation. But some unsuspecting fool stumbled upon the information. He told the wrong party. The vaccine fell into the hands of some very . . . disturbed people. These people heated the vaccine to precisely 179.47 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours, and so was born the world’s deadliest airborne virus.”
There was something very odd about what Teeleh was saying, but Thomas couldn’t put his finger on it. Regardless, the creature’s information matched his dreams.
“Come closer,” Teeleh said.
“Closer?”
“You want to know about the virus, don’t you? Just a little closer.”
Thomas took a half step. Teeleh’s claw flashed without warning. It barely touched his thumb, which was gripping the rail. A small shock rode up his arm, and he jerked the hand back. Blood seeped from a tiny cut in his thumb. It was smeared.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“You want to know; I’m helping you know.”
“How does cutting me help me know?”
“Please, it’s nothing but a scratch. I was merely testing you. Ask me a question.”
The whole business was highly unusual. But then so was everything about Teeleh.
“Do you know the number of nucleotide base pairs for HIV?” he asked. “In the Raison Vaccine, that is.”
“Base pairs: 375,200. But you know that it wasn’t the actual Raison Strain that brought such destruction,” Teeleh said. “It was the antivirus. Which conveniently also ended up in the hands of the same man who unleashed the virus. He blackmailed the world. Thus the name, the Great Deception.”
Thomas’s head buzzed. “The antivirus?”
“Yes. Cutting the DNA at the fifth gene and the ninety-third gene and splicing the two remaining ends together.” Teeleh suddenly grew very still. His voice softened. “Tell them that, Thomas. Tell them 179.47 degrees for two hours and tell them the fifth gene and the ninety-third gene, cut and spliced. Say that.”
“Say the numbers?”
“Don’t you want to know? Say them.”
“One hundred and seventy-nine point four seven degrees for two hours.”
“Yes, now the fifth gene.”
“Fifth gene . . .”
“Yes, and the ninety-third gene.”
“Ninety-third gene,” Thomas repeated.
“Cut and spliced.”
“Cut and spliced.”
“And you’ll need her back door as well.”
“The back door as well?”
“Yes. Now forget that I told you that.”
“Forget?”
“Forget.” Teeleh withdrew the same fruit he’d offered before. “Here. Have a bite of fruit. It’ll help you.”
“No, I can’t.”
“That’s just not true. I’ve just proved that those rules are a prison. How thick can you be?”
Teeleh stood, unmoving, the fruit perched lightly in his fingers. He spoke in a quieter voice now. “The fruit will open whole new worlds to you, Thomas, my friend. And the water will show you worlds of knowledge you have only dreamed of. Worlds your friends in the colored forest know nothing about.”
Thomas looked at the f
ruit. Then up at the green eyes. What if there really was a spaceship behind those trees? It was as likely a scenario as anything else he’d considered.
“Assuming this is all true, where is Bill?”
“Would you like to see Bill? Maybe I can arrange that for you.”
“You said you had a way to get us home.”
“Yes. Yes, I can do that. We’ve found a way to fix your ship.”
“Can you show it to me?” Thomas’s heart pounded as he asked the question. Seeing the ship would end the debate raging in his mind, but Thomas had no guarantee the Shataiki wouldn’t tear him to pieces. They’d tried once already.
“Yes. Yes, and I will. But first I need one thing from you. A simple thing that you could do easily, I think.” Again the leader paused, as if tentative about actually asking what he had come to ask.
“What?”
“Bring Tanis here, to the bridge.”
Silence engulfed them. Not a single Shataiki lining the forest seemed to move. All eyes glared with anticipation at Thomas. His heart pounded. Other than the gurgling of the river below, it was the only sound he now heard.
“And if I do that, then you will guarantee me safe passage to my ship? Repaired?”
“Yes.”
Thomas reached a hand to the rail to steady himself.
“You just want me to bring him to the bridge, right? Not across the bridge.”
“Yes. Just to the river here.”
“And what guarantee do I have that you will lead me safely to the craft?”
“I will bring the craft here to the bridge as well. You may enter it with no Shataiki in sight, before I speak to Tanis.”
If the Shataiki could actually show him this ship, the Discovery III, it would be proof enough. If not, he wouldn’t cross the bridge. No harm.
“Makes sense,” he said cautiously.
The living wall of black creatures lining the forest now hissed collectively like a great field of locusts. Teeleh stared at Thomas, raised the fruit to his lips, and bit deeply again. He licked the juice that ran onto his fingers with a long, thin, pink tongue. All the while his unblinking eyes stared at Thomas. Could he trust this creature? If what he said were true, then he had to find the spacecraft! It would be his only way home.
The leader stopped his licking. He stretched the fruit out to Thomas. “Eat this fruit to seal our agreement,” Teeleh said. “It’s our very best.”
