Circle Series 4-in-1

by Ted Dekker

  “If I were concerned only with the histories, I would save myself, wouldn’t I? We’re doing here nothing less than what Justin himself would undoubtedly do.”

  There was nothing more to be said. Thomas withdrew the Book from his belt and shoved it into his tunic.

  Woref rode past his men and studied the standoff in the canyon.

  Five.

  The other fifty had disappeared.

  But among the five was Thomas. If he’d estimated correctly, the others would emerge from these canyons in the south, where his men would deal with them appropriately. His concern was now with these five.

  This one.

  “Send word: when they find the others, kill them all. I have Thomas of Hunter.”

  He nudged his horse and rode with his guard to meet the man who was responsible for the grief he’d suffered these past thirteen months. Thomas of Hunter’s name was still whispered with awe late at night around a thousand campfires. He was a legend who defied reason. Failing to defeat the Horde with his sword, he’d now taken up the weapon of peace. Qurong would prefer to face a sword any day over this heroic deceit they called the Circle. True, only a thousand had followed Thomas into his madness, but what was a thousand could easily become ten thousand. And then a hundred thousand.

  Today he would reduce their number to one.

  And today Woref would have his bride.

  He stopped ten yards from the albinos. They looked like salamanders with their sickly bare flesh. The breeze brought their scent to him, and he tried his best not to draw it too deep. They smelled of fruit. The same bitter fruit that they used for their sorcery—the variety that grew around the red pools. It was said that they drank the blood of Justin and that they forced their children to do the same. What kind of disease of the mind would push a man to such absurdities?

  Two of the prisoners were bald. They looked vaguely familiar. A third was a woman. The mere thought of any man breeding with such a sickly salamander was enough to make him nauseated.

  He nudged his horse abreast their leader, Thomas of Hunter. Similarly fashioned medallions hung from each of their necks. He reached down, grasped Thomas’s pendant, jerked it free, and held it in his palm. Then he spit on it.

  “You are now prisoners of Qurong, supreme leader of the Horde,” he said. Then he turned his horse away, overcome by their scent.

  “So it would appear,” Thomas said.

  “Douse them!”

  Two of his men rode around the captives and tossed ash on them. The ash contained sulfur and made their stench manageable.

  “Where are the others?” Woref asked.

  Thomas stared at him, eyes blank.

  “Kill the woman,” Woref said.

  One of the soldiers pulled a sword and approached the black female.

  “Killing any of us would be a mistake,” Thomas said. “We can’t tell you where the others are. We can only tell how they outwitted you, which we will gladly do. But by now they’ve fled in a direction only they know.”

  Woref felt a new dislike for this man run deep into his bones. He wondered how smart the rebel would look without lips. But then Qurong wouldn’t get the information he needed.

  “I know how they escaped,” he said. “My scouts missed a break in the cliffs that leads south, into the desert. Your band of rebels is headed into our hands at this very moment.”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  He’d expected a flinch, a pause, anything to indicate the man’s surprise at being discovered so easily. Instead, Thomas had delivered this unflinching reprimand.

  “You’ll pay for your disrespect. I give you my vow. Chain them.”

  Woref turned his horse around and headed out of the canyon.

  Mikil swept the scope across the desert that surrounded the canyon lands.

  “Others?” Johan asked.

  “No. Just the one group.”

  Behind them, fifty sets of round white eyes peered from the dark cavern that hid them. They wound their way through the gap and into an adjacent canyon that led them here, to the edge of the southern desert. But they wouldn’t break into the open until they were sure that the Horde was gone.

  “They’ll be in the cave by now,” Johan said. “We have to move soon.”

  “Unless they followed Thomas out of the canyon.”

  Johan frowned. “Assuming Thomas made it out of the canyon.”

  She lowered the glass. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  He glanced back and spoke in a low voice. “I could have sworn I saw Woref on the cliff. They came on us without warning, which means they had already scouted us out. They would have both escape routes covered. I don’t see how anyone, even Thomas, could possibly escape without a fight. And we both know that he won’t fight.”

  The revelation stunned her. Not only as Mikil, who feared for the Circle’s future without Thomas to lead them, but as Kara, who suddenly feared for her brother’s life.

  “Then we have to go back!”

  “We have the tribe to think about.” He took a deep breath. “First the tribe, then Thomas. Assuming he’s alive.”

  She was about to reprimand him for even suggesting such a thing, but then it occurred to her that, as Mikil, she agreed.

  She faced the desert. “Then we stay here,” she said.

  “They’ll follow our tracks.”

  “Not if we block the tunnel. Think about it. They’ll never expect us to stay in these canyons. Anywhere but here, right? And they’ll never find this cavern. There’s a red pool nearby, water, food. I don’t want to go deep if they have my brother.”

  The emotions mixing in Mikil’s chest were enough to make her want to scream. She was Mikil, but she was Kara, and as Kara she’d awakened into a firestorm. Surprisingly she’d felt only a little fear, even with the Horde’s arrows narrowly missing her head. Mikil had been up against the Scabs a thousand times, most often in hand-to-hand combat.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t the status quo for the civilians in her charge. They’d lost six in the attack, including Jeremiah. Her heart felt sick.

  But there was another emotion pulling at her. The desire to wake up in Dr. Myles Bancroft’s laboratory. Thomas had taken the Book—now she wished she’d taken it. There was no telling how many more opportunities they would have to write in it. The thought of those few words she’d written actually having power on Earth made her spine tingle. She had to get back to see if they had worked. Imagine . . .

  Johan scratched his chin and looked around. “If we block the tunnel, they’ll see that we blocked it.”

  “Let them. When they can’t find us, they’ll assume we went deep.”

  “They’ll still look for our trail.”

  “Then we’ll give them one that takes them away from here, further west and into the desert. With the night winds blowing our tracks, they will be lost by morning.”

  He was silent, thinking.

  “I refuse to go deep as long as Thomas’s fate is uncertain.”

  He nodded. “It could work. But we don’t block the tunnel at its entrance. It’s too late for that anyway.” He ran to his horse and swung into the saddle. “We have to hurry.”

  6

  “KARA. WAKE up.”

  She felt her shoulder being shaken.

  “That’s it, dear. Wake up. You’ve been sleeping for two good hours.”

  Kara stared at the frumpy figure at her side. Dr. Myles Bancroft wore a knowing grin. Dabbed a handkerchief on his brow.

  “Two hours and not one dream,” he said.

  The lights were still low. Machines hummed quietly—a computer fan, air conditioning. The faint smell of human sweat mixed with a deodorant.

  “Did you dream?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She pushed herself up. He’d wiped the blood from her arm and applied a small white bandage. “Yes, I did.”

  “Not according to my instruments, you didn’t. And that, my dear, makes this not only a fascinating case, but one that is duplicable.
First Thomas and now you. Something is happening with you two.”

  “It’s his blood. Don’t ask me how this all got started, but my brother is the gateway between these two realities.”

  “I doubt very much that there are two realities,” he said. “Something is happening in your minds that is certainly beyond ordinary dreams, but I can promise you that your body was here the whole time. You didn’t walk through any wardrobe to Narnia or take a trip to another galaxy.”

  “Semantics, Professor.” She slid off the bed. “We don’t have time for semantics. We have to find Monique.”

  Bancroft looked at her with a sheepish grin tempting his face, as if he were working up the courage to ask the delicious question: “So what happened?”

  “I woke as Mikil, lieutenant to Thomas of Hunter. She and I wrote in a book that has power to bring life from words, narrowly survived an attack by the Horde, and found safe haven in a cavern after blocking our escape route. I finally fell into an exhausted sleep and woke up here.”

  Hearing herself summarize, a buzz rode down her neck. She’d played both doubter and believer over the last two weeks with Thomas, and she wasn’t sure which was easier.

  “No wounds.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have any wounds or anything to prove your experiences like Thomas did.”

  True.

  “Have you heard news?” she asked.

  “Not particularly, no.” He blinked and looked away. “The world is going to hell, quite literally. The great equalizer that most of us knew would eventually get loose finally has. I just can’t believe how fast it’s all happening.”

  “The virus? Equalizing as in it’s no respecter of persons. The president is as vulnerable as the homeless bum in the alley. And why are you still so interested in dreams, Doctor? You said you were infected, right? You have ten days to live like the rest of us. Shouldn’t you be with your family?”

  “My work is my family, dear. I did manage to ingest dangerous levels of alcohol when the whole thing first sank in about a week ago. But I’ve since decided to spend my last days fussing over my first love.”

  “Psychology.”

  “I intend to die in her arms.”

  “Then let me give you a suggestion from one who’s seen beyond her own mind, Doctor. Talk to your priest. There’s more to all of this than your eyes can see or your instruments record.”

  “You’re a religious person?” he asked.

  “No. But Mikil is.”

  “Then maybe I should talk to this Mikil of yours.”

  Kara glanced at the bench where she remembered last seeing Thomas’s blood sample. It was gone.

  “Don’t worry; it’s safely stored.”

  “I . . . I need it.”

  “Not without a court order. It stays with me. You’re welcome here anytime. Which reminds me, Secretary Merton Gains called about an hour ago.”

  “Gains?” The nuclear crisis! “What did he say?”

  “He wanted to know if we had reached any conclusion here.”

  “What did you tell him? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I had to be sure. Some subjects require an unusual amount of time to enter REM. I woke you as soon as I was confident.”

  Kara started toward the door, suddenly frantic. She had to find Thomas or Monique, dead or alive. But how? And the blood . . .

  She turned back. “Doctor, please, you have to give me his blood. He’s my brother! The world is in a crisis here, and I—”

  “Gains was quite clear,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose control. He seemed to suggest that this was a possibility, a threat from the inside.”

  A mole?

  “In the White House?”

  “He didn’t say. I’m a psychologist, not an intelligence officer.”

  “Fine. What did you tell him about me?”

  “That you weren’t dreaming. Which probably means you were experiencing the same thing your brother did. He wants you to call him immediately.”

  She stared at him, then strode for the desk phone. “Now you tell me.”

  Bancroft shrugged. “Yes, well, I have a lot on my mind. I’m going to die in ten days, did I tell you?”

  Bright light stabbed her eyes. Sunlight. Or was it something else? Maybe that light from beyond. Maybe she’d died from the Raison Strain and was now floating above her body, drifting toward the great white light in the sky.

  She blinked. There was pressure on her chest, something biting into her collarbone. Her breathing came hard. No pain though.

  All of this she realized with her first blink.

  Then she realized that she was in an automobile at a precarious angle, hanging from her seat belt. She grabbed the steering wheel to support herself and sucked in a huge gulp of air.

  What had happened? Where was she? Panic edged into her mind. If she shifted her weight, the car might fall!

  Green foliage was plastered against the windows. A shaft of sunlight shot through a small triangular break in the leaves. She was in a tree?

  Monique blinked again and forced her mind to slow down. She remembered some things. She’d been working on the antivirus to the Raison Strain. Her solution had failed. The chances of finding any anti-virus other than the one Svensson possessed were nil. She’d been on her way to Washington—an unscheduled trip of desperation. Kara had convinced her that Thomas might still be their only hope, and in the wake of her monumental failure, Monique intended to make the case to the president himself. Then she would go to Johns Hopkins, where Kara was going to attempt to connect with the other reality by using Thomas’s blood.

  She’d been driving down a side road at night, following the sign that said Gas—2 miles, when her vision suddenly clouded. That was all she could remember.

  Monique leaned to her right. The car didn’t budge. She leaned farther and peered out the side window. The car was on the ground, not in a tree. Shrubs crowded every side. The hood was wedged under a web of small branches. She must have fallen asleep and driven off the road. There was no sign of blood.

  She moved her legs and neck. Still no pain. Not even a headache.

  The car was resting at a thirty-degree angle—nothing short of a crane was going to budge it. She tried the door, found it unobstructed, and shoved it open. Released the shoulder harness.

  Her purse. It had Merton Gains’s card and her identification. She would need money. The black leather purse was on the floor, passenger side. Holding the steering wheel with her left hand, she lowered herself, grabbed the purse, and pulled herself back up.

  Monique eased out of the car and started crawling up the slope with the help of the surrounding shrubs. The road was just above her, maybe twenty-five yards, but several large trees blocked a clear view from the air.

  How much time had passed?

  The trip up the rocky slope did more damage to her than the car wreck. She tore her black slacks and smudged the front of her beige silk blouse with several falls. Her shoes were black flats, but they had slick soles. She kicked them off halfway up the slope, reached back for them, and muttered a curse when one slid ten feet down before stopping. She decided she was better off without them. Her soles had once favored bare earth over shoes anyway.

  When she finally clambered over the crest, she found a two-lane road with a solid yellow line down the middle. The sun was directly above— she’d been unconscious all night and half the day?

  To her right she could just see the highway. She stared about, still disoriented. Then she turned to her left and walked toward the small red Conoco sign a mile down the road. Or was it two miles? No, the sign had said 2 miles, but as near as she could see, she was halfway between the highway and the station. One mile. She would take her chances with a phone over thumbing a ride.

  Almost immediately she regretted having left her shoes. Fifty yards later she decided that she would thumb a ride to the station if at all possible. Assuming there was a ride to be thumbed. The road was deserted. F
or that matter, the Conoco station could be deserted as well. Last night she’d seen the lights from the highway—a hopeful sign that the station was open. Most she’d encountered along the road were closed.

  The hum of a big rig sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. A large fuel truck with a yellow Shell sign on a chrome tank sped down the highway. The sight stopped her. What was a trucker doing driving fuel down the road, knowing that in ten days he would be dead unless the government managed to find a way to stop the Raison Strain? Did the driver really understand what was happening? The reports she’d heard suggested that most Americans were staying at home, glued to the news. The government was paying huge dividends to certain critical companies if they remained open. Mostly utilities, communications, transportation— the essentials.

  She assumed that traffic would be limited to people going home to be with their families. But a trucker? Maybe he was going home too.

  She headed back off the road, sticking to the grass shoulder. Not a single car drove by during the twenty minutes it took her to reach the Conoco sign.

  The station was closed.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice echoed under the canopy that covered the deserted fuel islands. She walked for the window. “Hello?”

  Nothing. She didn’t blame them—the last thing she would do with ten days to live is work at a gas station.

  The door was locked. No sign of looting. No need to loot when the looters themselves were also infected. Riots would be instigated by thrill seekers determined to take their fear out on others rather than to seize any goods. It would start soon enough.

  In fact, now was as good a time as any.

  She picked up the small steel drum that read Garbage, drew it back, and swung it with all her strength at the window. The horrendous crash of breaking glass was loud enough to wake the dead. Good. She needed to wake the dead.

  Monique waited for a full minute, giving anyone who might have heard plenty of time to note that she wasn’t busy looting. Then she picked her way through the broken glass to the black phone on the counter.