by Ted Dekker
One of them raised light gray eyes to Thomas, who averted his stare.
It took Thomas and William fifteen minutes to reach the camp’s center. Twice they had been noticed; twice they had passed without incident. But Thomas knew that getting into the camp in the dead of night wouldn’t be their challenge. Finding the Books and getting them out would be.
The large central tent was actually a complex of about five tents, each guarded. From what he could determine, they’d come at the complex from the rear.
The canvas glowed a dull orange from the torches ablaze inside. The sheer size of the tents, the soldiers who guarded them, and the use of color collectively boasted of Qurong’s importance. Horde dyes came from brightly colored desert rocks ground into a powder. The dye had been applied to the tent’s canvas in large barbed patterns.
“This way.”
Thomas veered into an open passage behind the complex. He pulled William into the shadows and spoke in a whisper. “What do you think?”
“Swords,” William said.
“No fight!”
“Then make yourself invisible. There are too many guards. Even if we get inside, we’ll meet others there.”
“You’re too quick with the sword. We’ll go in as guards. They wear the light sash around their chests, you saw?”
“You think we can kill two without being seen? Impossible.”
“Not if we take them from the inside.”
William glanced at the tent’s floor seam. “We have no idea what or who’s inside.”
“Then, and only then, we will use our swords.” Thomas whipped out his dagger. “Check the front.”
William stepped to the edge of the tent and peered around. He returned, sword now drawn. “Clear.”
“We do this quickly.”
They understood that surprise and speed would be their only allies if the room was occupied. They dropped to their knees, and Thomas ran the blade quickly along the base of the tent with a long ripping slash that he prayed would go unheard.
He jerked the canvas up and William rolled inside. Thomas dove after him.
They came up in a room lit by a flickering torch flame. Three forms lay to their left, and William leaped for one that was rising. These were clearly the servants’ quarters. But the cry of a servant could kill them as easily as any sword.
William reached the servant before he could turn to see what the disturbance was. He clamped his hand around the Scab’s face and brought the sword up to his neck.
“No!” Thomas whispered. “Alive!”
Keeping hold of the startled servant, William stepped toward the others, smashed the butt of his knife down on the back of the sleeping man’s head, and then repeated the same blow on the third.
The Scab in William’s arms began to struggle.
“She’ll wake the whole tent,” William objected. “I should kill her!”
A woman? Thomas grabbed her hair and brought his own dagger up to her throat. “A sound and you die,” he whispered. “We’re not here to kill, you understand? But we will if we have to.”
Her eyes were like moons, wide and gray with terror.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously.
“Then tell me what I want to know. No one knows that you saw us. I’ll knock you out so that no one can accuse you of betrayal.”
Her face wrinkled with fear.
“You would rather have me kill you? Be sensible and you’ll be fine. A bump on the head is all.”
She didn’t look persuaded, but neither did she make any sound.
“The Books of Histories,” Thomas said. “You know them?”
Thomas felt a moment’s pity for the woman. She was too horrified to think, much less speak. He released her hair.
“Let her go.”
“Sir, I advise against it.”
“You see? He advises against it,” Thomas said to the woman. “That’s because he thinks you’ll scream. But I think better of you. I believe that you’re nothing more than a frightened girl who wants to live. If you scream, we’ll have to kill half the people in this tent, including Qurong himself. Cooperate and we may kill no one.” He pressed the blade against her skin.
“Will you cooperate?”
She nodded.
“Release her.”
“Sir—”
“Do it.”
William slowly let his hand off her mouth. Her lips trembled but she made no sound.
“Good. You’ll find that I’m a man of my word. You may ask Chelise, the daughter of Qurong, about me. She knows me as Roland. Now tell me. Do you know of the Books?”
She nodded.
“And are they in these tents?”
Nothing.
“I swear, woman, if you insist on—”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Yes? Yes, of course he’d come for precisely this, but to hear her say that the Books of Histories, those ancient writings of such mythic power, were here at this very moment . . . It was more than he’d dared truly believe.
“Where?”
“They are sacred! I can’t . . . I would be killed for telling you. The Great One allows no one to see them! Please, please I beg you—”
“Keep your voice down!” he hissed. They were running out of time. At any moment someone would come bursting in.
Thomas lowered his blade. “Fine then. Kill her, William.”
“No, please!” She fell to her knees and gripped his robe. “I’ll tell you. They are in the second tent, in the room behind the Great One’s bedchamber.”
Thomas raised his hand to William. He dropped to one knee and scratched an image of the complex into the sand. “Show me.”
She showed him with a trembling finger.
“Is there any way into this room besides through the bedchamber?”
“No. The walls are strung with a . . . a . . . metal . . .”
“A metal mesh?”
“Yes, yes, a metal mesh.”
“Are there guards in these rooms here?” He pointed to the adjoining rooms.
“I don’t know. I swear, I don’t—”
“Okay. Then lie down and I will spare your life.”
She didn’t move.
“It will be one knock on the head and you’ll have your excuse along with the others. Don’t be irrational!”
She lay in her bed and William hit her.
“Now what?” William asked, standing from the unconscious form.
“The Books are here.”
“I heard. They are also in a virtual vault.”
“I heard.”
Thomas faced the flap leading from the room. Apparently no alarm had been raised.
“As you said, we don’t have all night,” William said.
“Let me think.”
He had to find more information. They now knew that the Books not only existed, but lay less than thirty yards from where he stood. The find gripped him in a way he hadn’t expected. There was no telling how valuable the Books might be. In the other world, certainly, but even here! The Roush had certainly gone out of their way to conceal them. How had Qurong managed to lay his hands on them in the first place?
“Sir—”
Thomas walked to the wall, where several robes hung. He stripped off his own.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m becoming a servant. Their robes aren’t as light as the warriors’.”
William followed suit. They pulled on the new robes and stuffed the old under the servant’s blanket. They would need those again.
“Wait here. I’m going find out more.”
“What? I can’t—”
“Wait here! Do nothing. Stay alive. If I’m not back in half an hour, then find me. If you can’t find me, get back to the camp.”
“Sir—”
“No questions, William.”
He straightened his robe, pulled the hood over his head, and walked from the room.
The tents were really one
large tent after all. Nothing less than a portable castle. Purple and red drapes hung on most walls, and dyed carpets ran across the ground. Bronze statues of winged serpents with ruby eyes seemed to occupy every corner. Otherwise, the halls were deserted.
Thomas walked like a Scab in the direction the servant had shown him. The only sign of life came from a steady murmur of discussion that grew as he approached Qurong’s quarters.
Thomas entered the hall leading to the royal chambers and stopped. A single carpet bearing a black image of the serpentine Shataiki bat whom they worshiped filled the wall. To his left, a heavy turquoise curtain separated him from the voices. To his right, another curtain cloaked silence.
Thomas ignored the thumping of his heart and moved to the right. He eased the cloth aside, found the room empty, and slipped in.
A long mat set with bronze goblets and a tall chalice sat in the center of what could only be Qurong’s dining room. What Thomas called furniture was sparse among the Desert Dwellers—they lacked the wood— but their ingenuity was evident. Large stuffed cushions, each emblazoned with the serpentine crest, sat around the mat. At the room’s four corners, flames licked the still air, casting light on no less than twenty swords and sickles and clubs and every conceivable Horde weapon, all of which hung from the far wall.
A large reed barrel stood in the corner to his right. He hurried over and peered in. Stagnant desert water. The water ran near the surface in pockets where the Desert Dwellers grew their wheat and dug their shallow wells. It was no wonder they preferred to drink it mixed with wheat and fermented as wine or beer.
He wasn’t here to drink their putrid water.
Thomas checked the hall and found it clear. He was halfway through the entryway when the drape into the opposite room moved.
He retreated and eased the flap down.
“A drink, general?”
“Why not?”
Thomas ran for the only cover the room offered. The barrel. He slid behind, dropped to his knees, and held his breath.
The flap opened. Whooshed closed.
“A good day, sir. A good day indeed.”
“And it’s only beginning.”
Beer splashed from the chalice into a goblet. Then another. Thomas eased as far into the shadow as he dared without touching the tent wall.
“To my most honored general,” a smooth voice said. No one but Qurong would refer to any general as my general.
“Martyn, general of generals.”
Qurong and Martyn! Bronze struck bronze. They drank.
“To our supreme ruler, who will soon rule over all the forests,” the general said.
The goblets clinked again.
Thomas let the air escape his lungs and breathed carefully. He slipped his hand under his cloak and touched the dagger. Now! He should take them both now; it wouldn’t be an impossible task. In three steps he could reach them and send them both to Hades.
“I tell you, the brilliance of the plan is in its boldness,” Qurong said. “They may suspect, but with our forces at their doorstep, they will be forced to believe. We’ll speak about peace and they will listen because they must. By the time we work the betrayal with him, it will be too late.”
What was this? A thread of sweat leaked down Thomas’s neck. He moved his head for a glimpse of the men. Qurong wore a white robe without a hood. A large bronze pendant of the Shataiki hung from his neck. But it was the man’s head that held Thomas’s attention. Unlike most of the Horde, he wore his hair long, matted and rolled in dreadlocks. And his face looked oddly familiar.
Thomas shook off the feeling.
The general wore a hooded robe with a black sash. His back was turned.
“Here’s to peace then,” Martyn said.
Qurong chuckled. “Yes, of course. Peace.”
They drank again.
Qurong dropped his goblet and let out a satisfied sigh. “It is late and I think the pleasure of my wife beckons me. Round the inner council at daybreak. Not a word to the rest, my friend. Not a word.”
The general dipped his head. “Good evening.”
Qurong turned to go.
Thomas forced his hand to still. A betrayal? He could kill them both now, but doing so might raise the alarm. He would never get to the Books. And Qurong might assume that their plan had been overheard. He and William could just as easily slit the leader’s throat as he slept later.
Qurong drew aside the drape and was gone.
But the general remained. Imagine, taking out Martyn! It was almost worth the risk of discovery.
The general coughed, set his goblet down with care, and turned to leave. It was in his turning that he must have seen something, because he suddenly stopped and looked toward Thomas’s corner.
Silence gripped the room. Thomas closed his hand around the dagger. If killing Martyn ruined their plans, then doing so took priority over the Books. They could always— “Hello?”
Thomas held still.
The general took two steps toward the barrel and stopped.
Now, Thomas! Now!
No, not now. There was still a chance the general would turn away. Taking the man from the side or back would reduce his chances of crying out.
For a long moment, neither moved. The general sighed and turned around.
Thomas rose and hurled the dagger in one smooth motion. If the mighty general even heard the whoosh of the knife, he showed no sign of it. The blade flashed in rotation, once, twice, then buried itself in the base of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord before the man had time to react.
Like a sack of rocks cut loose from the rafters, the man collapsed.
Thomas reached him in three long strides and covered the general’s mouth with his hand. But the man wouldn’t be raising any alarm.
Thomas jerked his knife out and wiped the blood on his robe. A trickle of blood ran down the man’s neck. One, two spots on the floor.
Thomas hauled the man to the barrel, hoisted him up, and eased him into the water. Their mighty general would be discovered drowned in a barrel of water like a common criminal.
Thomas found William where he’d left him, standing in the corner, barely visible from the doorway.
“Well?”
“We have to wait. Their fearless leader is with his wife,” Thomas said.
“You found the bedchamber?”
“I think so. But like I said, he’s busy. We’ll give him some time.”
“We don’t have time! The sun will be rising.”
“We have time. Their mighty general, Martyn, on the other hand, does not have time. If I’m not mistaken, I just killed him.”
Their wait lasted less than thirty minutes. Either Qurong’s allusion to his wife was for the benefit of his general, or he’d forgone pleasure for the sake of sleep; no sound other than a soft steady snore reached Thomas’s ears when he and William listened at what they assumed to be Qurong’s bedchamber.
Thomas pulled back the drape and peered into the room. A single torch lit what looked like a reception room. One guard sat in the corner, head hung between his legs.
Thomas lifted a finger to his lips and pointed at the guard. William nodded.
Thomas tiptoed to a curtain on the opposite end of the room, eyes on the guard. William hurried to the guard. A dull thump and the Scab sagged, unconscious. With any luck, the guard would never confess to being overpowered by intruders. He was a guard after all, not a servant, and guards who let thieves sneak up on their Great One surely deserved to be drowned in a barrel.
Thomas peeled back the curtain. The bedchamber. Complete with one fearless leader spread out, facedown, snoring on a thick bed of pillows. His wife lay curled next to him.
They entered the bedchamber, closed the flap, and let their eyes adjust. A dull glow from both the adjacent hall and the reception room behind them reached past the thin walls.
If the servant girl hadn’t misled them, Qurong kept the Books of Histories in the chamber behind his bed. Thomas saw
the drape. Even in the dim light Thomas could see the cords of metal woven into the walls all around the bedroom. Qurong clearly had gone to great lengths to keep anyone from slicing their way in.
Thomas eased across the room, dagger drawn. He resisted a terrible impulse to slit the leader’s throat where he lay next to his wife. First the Books. If there were no Books, he might need Qurong to lead him to them. If they found the Books, he would kill the leader on the way out.
He reached an unsteady hand out and pulled the drape aside.
Open.
Thomas slipped in, followed by William.
The room was small, dim. Musty. Tall bronze candlesticks stood on the floor in a semicircle, unlit. Above them on the wall, a large, forged serpentine bat. And beneath the bat, surrounded by the candlesticks, two trunks.
Thomas’s heart could hardly beat any harder, but somehow it managed exactly that. The trunks were the kind the Horde commonly used to carry valuables—tightly thatched reed, hardened with mortar. But these trunks were banded by bronze straps. And the lids were each stamped with the Shataiki crest.
If the Books were in these two trunks, the Desert Dwellers had embraced them as part of their own evolving religion. The Books had come from Elyon long before the Shataiki had been released to destroy the land. And yet Qurong was blending these two icons, which stood in unequivocal contrast with each other. It was like putting Teeleh next to a gift from Elyon and saying that they were the same.
It was the deception of Teeleh himself, Thomas thought. Teeleh had always wanted to be Elyon, and now he would make sure that in the minds of these Scabs, he was. He would claim history. History was his. He was the Creator.
Blasphemy.
Thomas knelt on one knee, put his fingers under the lid’s lip, and pulled up. It refused to budge.
William was already running his thumb along the lip. “Here,” he whispered. Leather ties bound rings on both the lid and the trunk.
He quickly sawed at the leather. It parted with a soft snap. They glanced at each other, held stares for a moment. Still nothing but soft snoring from the leader’s chamber.
They pulled up on the lid together. It parted from the trunk with a soft scrape.
The problem with being caught in this room was that there was only one way out. There would be no quick escape through a cut in the wall. In essence they were in their own small prison.
