by Ted Dekker
“Who has a quill?” Thomas demanded. “A marker, anything to write with. Charcoal—”
“Here.” Ronin held out a charcoal writing stick with a black point.
Thomas took the crude instrument and stared at it.
“Justin was clear that we should hide this Book,” William said. “That it is dangerous. We have to come to some kind of agreement on this.”
Thomas paced, Book in one hand, pencil in the other. “And Justin said that the Book only works in the histories—the dream world Kara and I come from. For starters, that confirms the histories are real and can be affected. It also means that the Book should be powerless here.”
If what Thomas was saying was true, the Book’s power might be quite incredible. “What would you write?” Mikil asked. “I mean, what limits would there be? Surely we can’t just wipe out the virus with a few strokes of the pen.”
Thomas set the Book on the rock. “You’re right. I . . . that seems too simple.” The others gathered around, silenced by impossible thoughts.
He looked at the cover again. “The Story of History. That means it should be a story, right?”
“As in ‘once upon a time’?” Ronin asked. “You’re saying that if you wrote, ‘Once upon a time there was a rabbit,’ then a rabbit would appear in your dreams?”
“Too simple,” Mikil said. “And what script should we use?” There was a slight difference between the alphabet used in each reality—the one used here was simpler.
“The script of the histories,” Thomas said.
“What do you want to accomplish in this other reality?” Ronin asked. “Your main goal—what is it?”
“There’s a virus that will destroy most of humanity . . . you know, the Raison Strain,” Thomas said. “The one that ushered in the Great Tribulation as recorded in the Books of Histories. Knowledge of the history has become somewhat vague in the fifteen years since Tanis’s Crossing, but we all knew it orally once.”
“Yes, of course. The Raison Strain. These were the histories that Tanis was fascinated with.” Ronin looked at Mikil. “You’re saying that these histories are . . . now? Real now?”
“Haven’t you been listening to me?” William said. “That’s what I’ve been saying. I’ve said that he’s only recalling memories, but he seems to think that these dreams of his are real.”
“Actually, I’m not sure we know how it works,” Mikil said. How could she possibly explain her dual reality at this very moment? “Thomas is the expert here, but I can say whether past or present, the histories are not only real, but we must also be able to affect them.”
“But surely you don’t think you can change what has been written about as a matter of history,” William said.
“We don’t know that either,” Thomas said. “Without the actual Books of Histories, we don’t know what was recorded. As far as we know, the histories record our finding this Book and writing in it today.”
That kept them all quiet for a moment.
“Then write a story,” Ronin finally said.
William grunted in disgust. “Why should I care about any of this? I care about what is real, here. Like the Horde that pursues us every day. I am going to gather my people and take them deep.” He stalked off.
Thomas handed Mikil the pencil. “Your recollection of the writing is fresher than mine. You write.”
It was an excuse, she thought, but she reached for the instrument anyway. A slight tremble shook her fingers.
“What should I write?”
“Something simple that we can test,” Thomas said. “What is our immediate concern?”
“You,” Mikil said. “You’re dead in France. And Monique.”
“You’re suggesting we write them back to life?”
“Why not?” Mikil asked.
“Isn’t that a bit complicated? It seems a bit much. Absurd maybe.”
“Absurd?” Ronin said. “As opposed to the rest of this, which is supposed to make perfect sense?”
“Write it,” Thomas said.
Mikil’s hand hovered above the blank page. “Once upon a time, Thomas came back to life?”
“More detail.”
“I don’t think I can do this. What detail? I don’t even know what you were wearing.”
“Write this,” Thomas said. He glanced at her hand, which hadn’t moved. “Ready?”
“Okay.” She lowered her hand.
“Thomas Hunter, the man who first learned of the Raison Strain’s threat, the same man who was shot in the head—”
“Hold on.” Mikil touched the charcoal stick to the page. If she wasn’t mistaken, a slight heat rode up her fingers. Then again, her nerves were firing hot. She wrote his words verbatim.
“Okay.”
Thomas continued. “The same man who was shot in the head, was killed in France by a bullet to the head. Period. But on the third day he came back to life . . . No, forget that. This instead: But at a time when his body was unattended by any of his enemies, he came back to life. The end.”
She lifted the stick. “The end? What about Monique?”
“New paragraph. At about the same time that Thomas Hunter came back to life, Monique de Raison found herself in good health and fully able to continue her search for an antivirus in the United States of America. The end.”
Johan sighed. “Honestly, these don’t sound like stories to me.” He looked in the direction William had gone. “This whole thing seems a bit ridiculous in the face of our predicament. Can I suggest we reach . . .”
Johan stopped. His face lightened a shade. Mikil looked at the others who had honed in on Johan’s reaction. He was listening.
Then she heard it. The faint thunder of hooves. On the cliffs.
The Horde!
“Move!” Thomas snapped. “Into the tunnel!”
5
THOMAS SNATCHED up the Book and shoved it into his belt as he ran for the tents. Justin had shown his face to him. Then Kara through Mikil. And now the Horde was attacking.
Now I will show you my heart.
In moments they had caught up to William. “Mikil, Johan, get Samuel and Marie into the tunnel with the others! William, the east canyon with me. Five men.”
They’d selected this particular wash five days earlier not only for its proximity to the red pool, but because of a hidden passage under two huge boulders in the eastern canyon. The route was almost impossible to see without standing directly in front of it. With any luck the Horde would expect them to take one of the two more obvious escape routes.
How had the Scabs managed to pass their sentries on the cliffs undetected?
The first arrow clipped the rock face on Thomas’s left before he reached the tents. He glanced over his shoulder. Mounted archers. Fifty at least.
“Ahead,” Mikil shouted. “They’ve cut off the eastern canyon!”
Cries of alarm sounded throughout the camp. Women ran for their children. The men were already running toward the corral. There was no time to collect dishes or food or clothing. They would do well enough to escape with their lives.
“William?”
“You want only five?” his lieutenant demanded. “The Scabs might not follow us.”
They would be the diversion. Under other circumstances he would take at least ten, enough to raise enough dust to draw a pursuit while the others slipped away through the hidden escape route. But Thomas knew that, today, whoever was part of the diversion might not escape.
“Only five,” he said. “I have the fire.”
He ran to the center of the camp where he was certain to be seen clearly. With any luck they would key in on him. The price on his head was a hundred times that on anyone else’s. And Thomas had heard the rumor that Qurong’s own daughter, Chelise, whom he had once met deep in the desert, was promised to Woref upon his capture.
The cries quieted quickly. The Circle had been through its share of escapes before. They all knew that screaming was no way to avoid attention. There were enough
horses to carry the entire tribe, one adult and one child per horse, with a dozen left over to carry their supplies.
Thomas grabbed the smoldering torch next to the main campfire. Gruff shouting directed the attack overhead. An arrow sliced through the air and thudded into flesh on Thomas’s right. He spun.
Alisha, Lucy’s mother, was grabbing at a shaft that protruded from her side. Thomas started toward her but pulled up when he saw that Lucy was already running for her mother, gripping one of the fleshy, orange fruits that healed. She reached her mother, dropped the fruit, gripped the shaft with both hands, and pulled hard. Alisha groaned. The arrow slid free.
Then Lucy was squeezing the fruit over the open wound.
Thomas ran to intercept William, who led Suzan and two mounted tribe members. He leaped into the saddle on the run and kicked the horse into a full gallop, leading the others now.
A throaty grunt behind him made him turn his head. It was the old man, Jeremiah. Most of the tribe had already taken their positions under a protective ledge by the stables, but the council had been farthest from the horses when the attack had started. The old man had lagged. A Scab spear had found his back.
In the confusion, no one was running to his aid. If he died, the fruit wouldn’t bring him back.
“William, torch!”
He tossed the smoking fire to William, who caught it with one hand and looked back to see the problem.
“Hurry, Thomas. We’re cutting this close.”
“Light the fires. Go!”
Thomas spun his horse and sprinted for the old man, who lay face-down now. He dropped by Jeremiah, fruit in hand. But he knew before his knee hit the sand that he was too late.
“Jeremiah!” He grabbed the spear, put one foot on the man’s back, and yanked it out. The spinal column had been severed in two.
Thomas crushed the fruit in both hands, grunting with anger. Juice poured into the gaping hole.
Nothing. If the man was still alive, the juice would have begun its regeneration immediately.
An arrow slammed into his shoulder.
He stood and faced the direction it had come from. The archers on the nearest cliff stared down at him, momentarily off guard.
“He was once one of you!” he screamed. Without removing his eyes from them, Thomas grabbed the arrow in his shoulder, pulled it out, and threw it on the ground. He shoved the fruit against the wound.
“Now he is dead, as you yourselves are. You hear me? Dead! All of you. You live in death!”
One of them let an arrow fly. Thomas saw that the projectile was wide and let it hiss past without moving. It struck the sand.
Then he moved. Faster than they had expected. Onto his horse and straight toward the eastern canyon.
The first fire was already spewing thick black smoke skyward. William had lit the second on the opposite side of the canyon and was galloping toward the third pile of brush they’d prepared for precisely this eventuality.
Thomas ignored the arrows flying by, leaned over his horse’s neck, and plunged into the thick smoke.
Soren raised his hand to give the signal.
“Wait,” Woref said.
“The rest will break for the canyon,” his lieutenant said. “We should give chase now.”
“I said wait.”
Soren lowered his hand.
The plan had been to box them in, wound as many as possible from a high angle of attack, and then sweep down to finish them off. Their cursed fruit was powerless against a sickle to the neck. It was a strategy that Martyn himself once would have approved.
Now Martyn was down there among the albinos, trapped with the rest. But suddenly Woref wasn’t so sure of the strategy; he hadn’t expected the fires.
“They think the smoke will cover them?” Soren said. “The poor fools don’t know that we have their escape already covered at the other end.”
But this was Thomas they were up against. And Martyn. Neither would think that a bit of smoke would help them escape an enemy that had clearly known their position before the attack.
So why the fires?
“You’re certain there are no other routes from this canyon?”
“Not that any of our scouts could find.”
Yet there had to be. If he was leading this band of dissidents, which direction would he lead them? Into the desert, naturally. Away from the Horde. Out to the plains where they could simply outrun any pursuit.
“Tell half of the sweep team to cut off the desert to the south,” Woref said.
“The south?”
“Do not make me repeat another order.”
Soren stood in his stirrups and relayed the order through hand signals. Two mounted scouts, each confirming the message, wheeled their horses around and disappeared.
“The whole tribe will break for the smoke momentarily,” Woref said. “I want every archer pouring arrows into the albinos.”
“I’ve already passed the word.”
“But why?” Woref muttered to himself. “The smoke will suffocate them if they don’t get out quickly.”
A whistle echoed through the canyon and, precisely as he’d predicted, nearly fifty head of horses broke from under the ledge of a western canyon wall. Arrows rained down on them. Women clutched their children and rode for the smoke, kicking their mounts for as much speed as the animals could muster.
Multiple hits. They were sitting ducks down there. But they had only fifty yards to run before the smoke swallowed them.
Still, two fell. A horse stumbled and its rider ran on foot. A third clutched an arrow that had struck him in the chest. The one on foot tripped, and three arrows plowed into his back.
Then the albinos were through the gauntlet and into their smoke. Woref ’s men killed only five. Six, counting the one that the spear had taken earlier. Many more had been shot, but they would survive with the help of their sorcery. This bitter fruit of theirs.
The archers shot a dozen arrows into each of the fallen albinos, then the canyon fell eerily silent.
Woref reined his mount around and trotted along the cliff, eastward, eyes searching for the slightest sign of life beneath the thick smoke. The silence angered him. Surely they wouldn’t double back into another onslaught of arrows. There had to be another exit!
Behind him, the sweep team entered the valley, effectively cutting off any attempted retreat.
Thomas had been with the ones who’d lit the fires. Woref ’s agreement with Qurong was for Thomas. If the parties had split . . .
A cry came from the east. Thomas’s group had been sighted.
Woref kicked his horse and galloped up the canyon. He saw them then, five horses raising dust beyond the smoke, speeding directly for his trap.
Thomas led his contingent from the smoke, praying that every Scab eye was on him. He had surveyed every last inch of this canyon and knew where he would set a trap if he were the Horde commander. Their chances of breaking through that trap were small now. If they’d received warning, they would’ve had a better chance of sprinting past the mouth of the canyon before the trap had been set.
Two brothers, Cain and Stephen, raced beside Suzan to his right. William brought up the rear.
“Do we fight?” William demanded.
“No.”
“We’re too late! They’ll be waiting.”
Yes, they would be.
“We could go back,” William said.
“No! We can’t endanger the others. Have your fruit ready!”
As soon as he said it, he heard the cry ahead. Thirty mounted men rode into the open, cutting off the mouth of the canyon.
Still they galloped, straight for the waiting Horde.
“Justin, give us strength,” Thomas breathed.
The Scabs weren’t attacking. No arrows, no cries, just these thirty men on horses, waiting to collect them. There was no way past them.
Thomas reined his mount and held up a hand. “Hold up.”
They stopped a hundred yards from the Sc
abs.
“You’re going to let them take us?” William asked. “You know they’ll kill us.”
“And our alternative is what?”
“Mikil and Johan have had the time they need to get the rest through the gap. We can still make it!”
“They’ll have men in the canyon by now,” Suzan said. She’d been a latecomer to the Circle, and there wasn’t a person Thomas had been so glad to have join them. As the leader of the Forest Guard’s scouts, she’d studied the Horde more than most and knew their strategies nearly as well as Johan himself.
“And if we’re lucky, they won’t find the tunnel,” Thomas said.
“Then we have to fight! We can beat them—”
“No killing!” Thomas faced Cain and Stephen. “Are you ready for what this may mean?”
“If you mean death, then I’m ready,” Cain said.
“I’d rather die than be taken to their dungeons,” Stephen said. “I won’t be taken alive.”
“And how do you propose to force their hands? If they take us alive, then we will go with them peacefully. No fight, are we clear?”
“I helped them build the dungeons. I—”
“Then you can help us escape from their dungeons.”
“There is no escape!”
The brothers had been latecomers as well, and their discovery of life on the other side of the drowning was still fresh in their minds. Both were dark-skinned and had shaved their heads as part of a vow they’d taken. They were adamant about showing as much of their disease-free flesh as was decently possible.
“No fighting,” Thomas repeated.
They held stares for a moment. Stephen nodded. “No fighting.”
They sat five abreast, facing the Horde. Hooves sounded behind them and Thomas turned to see that the team Suzan had predicted was emerging from the thinning smoke.
“We’re buying a whole lot of trouble here,” William said.
“No, we’re buying Mikil’s freedom. The freedom of the Circle.”
“Mikil? Don’t tell me this has to do with these dreams of yours.”
The thought had occurred to him. He wasn’t sure what they’d done by writing in the blank Book now in his belt, but either he or Kara had to get back. The lives of six billion people were at stake. Not to mention his own sister’s life. If Mikil died, Kara would die.
