by Ted Dekker
She couldn’t speak. She wanted to rush toward him and throw her arms around his thick neck, and she wanted to tell him how often she thought about him: every night, every day. Every time she drank the red waters and ate Elyon’s fruit, she saw his face in her mind’s eye. She dreamed he would follow her into the red pool and drown his pitiful self—never mind how powerful he was—and find a new life that would make him dance through the night!
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even move after imagining this moment for so long.
Qurong’s eyes were soft. Even sad. But he turned his face away.
Chelise looked at Patricia, whose sharp glare softened. “Welcome into our home, Daughter.”
She dipped her head. “It’s my honor, Mother.”
Silence.
“Hello, Father.”
He glanced over and dipped his head politely.
Then her mother was rushing forward. They embraced, mother and daughter, Horde and albino.
“It’s so good to see you, Chelise,” her mother whispered, struggling not to cry. “I’ve been so worried.”
She kissed Patricia’s cheek. “It’s good to see you in good health.”
“And your son?” her mother asked, pulling back.
“Jake. He’s a bundle of energy.”
“Of course.” Her mother laughed. “He would be, with Qurong’s blood.”
“He already handles a wooden sword as if he was born with it.”
Patricia laughed, as did Cassak. But Qurong stared ahead and asked a most natural question, all things considered. “And is this an albino sword or one crafted by the Horde?”
“Oh, stop it, Qurong!” Patricia scolded. “Albino or not, he’s your grandson. Stop being a baby.”
Chelise wanted to reassure him but didn’t know what to say to cut through all the deceptions that guided him. All of this was his fault, after all. From the very beginning, her own father had expanded the divide between albino and Horde.
She had this one chance to persuade him, but all the speeches she’d rehearsed lying under the stars in the desert fled her mind.
“Where is Thomas?” she asked.
“I have no clue. Gone.”
“Tell us about Jake,” Patricia said. “Come and sit. Are you thirsty? Cassak, please bring us some fruit.”
Chelise sat at the table and politely accepted an orange from her mother. She told her about Jake, a little rascal who was as stubborn as both his father and grandfather. But as cute as a young Roush, with his fluffy blond hair.
She kept glancing at her father, who remained standing—under orders from Mother, no doubt. It was her idea, not his, that they meet.
They talked for a few minutes, and Chelise tried her best not to answer her mother’s questions in a way that might offend their way of life, but the challenge quickly became impossible.
“He sounds precious,” Patricia said, returning to Jake. “And healthy.”
“From his baptism on, he’s been as healthy as a horse.”
“Baptism? What is a baptism?”
“The drowning. All of our children drown in the red pools. It keeps the disease away.”
That robbed the tent of air.
“Barbaric,” Qurong said. “You actually kill your children?”
“Do I look dead to you, Father?” Chelise stood. “I know that none of you can appreciate the drowning or you would have chosen it long ago. But you must know from your very own daughter, it is life-giving. The dark priests tell you it’s poison. Do I look poisoned? Is that why we are so much stronger than even your best warriors?”
“Nonsense!”
“Please,” Patricia whispered, “don’t speak of such things here.”
But Chelise had waited ten years to speak of precisely such things here. She stepped around the table and approached her father.
General Cassak moved to intercept her. “Stay back.”
She ignored him. “My father isn’t afraid of women, particularly not his own daughter.”
That stopped the general, who looked at Qurong but got no instructions. Chelise stood several paces from her father and searched his eyes.
“I saw you vanish into the books with my husband, Father. Can you tell me where he is?”
“He’s escaped.”
“Into this world? Or another?”
Qurong shifted his eyes. “I know nothing of another world beyond the nightmares that plague me every time I close my eyes.”
“Please tell me that he was well the last time you saw him,” she begged. “I deserve that much.”
“How should I know? He’s a witch who changes what men can see with their natural eyes. Beyond that I know nothing.”
He was in complete denial about what she’d seen in his secret library. But she hardly blamed him. Who’d ever heard of vanishing into books? He’d categorized it as a nightmare.
“Father, I beg you to reconsider your ways. Albinos are a peaceful people who mean no harm to the Horde. They long only to be reunited with Elyon as was always intended. Everything that has happened from the beginning of time points to that end.”
“Death and destruction are part of that plan? Don’t be naive.”
“No, those were man’s choosing. But the evil was allowed so that we might all choose our lover. This is the meaning of the Great Romance— to choose to return the great love Elyon has shown us.”
She paused, then spoke softly, knowing he must understand her. “Do you remember what it was like before the Shataiki were set free, Father?”
“All of this is nonsense.”
“To you who don’t believe! Even to me before I believed. But to those who believe, it is the power of rescue. If you drown, Father, you will know what I know. Good and evil are not playing games to alleviate their boredom. The stakes are devastating! Our very lives are in the balance, all of ours—albino, Horde, and Eramite.”
Qurong stared at her for a long time before turning and walking to a pitcher of ale. He poured some of the amber drink into a pewter mug.
“Please, Father. I’m begging you.” She spoke in a soft, breaking voice because her emotions prevented her from screaming the words. “Drown with me!”
He took a long drink, refusing to look in her direction. Controlling his own emotions, she thought. She was getting through. How could anyone resist such simple truth?
“You speak of albinos who are peaceful, yet at this very moment they conspire to destroy the Horde,” he said.
“That’s just not true.”
He faced her. “Samuel has joined Eram and is conspiring to pull the albinos into alliance with the half-breeds.”
The moment he said it, Chelise knew it was true. This was what Thomas had meant!
And with such a show of power, more than a few albinos would be drawn into a war that promised to finish the Horde once and for all. Chelise’s belly turned. Thomas was right, the world was crumbling!
“Thomas . . .” she said. “We need Thomas! He can stop them.”
“Is that what he was doing when he offered his son up to Elyon at the high place? Stopping a war?”
“Yes! And you betrayed your word, Father.” She stepped up to him and placed her hand on his arm, desperate to gain his trust. “I beg you, Father. You can stop this senselessness. For my sake, I beg you. For the sake of your grandson.”
“Do not patronize me. There will be no war!” He pulled back, gripped his hand into a fist, and shook it. “But if there is, I will crush any force that comes against me.”
“Qurong!” Patricia crossed the floor to them. “Remember our agreement. Watch your tone!”
“I am Qurong!” he shouted. “My women do not tell me what to do!”
Chelise felt smothered by a sudden urgency to return to the albinos. Samuel had to be stopped!
“If she’d never fallen for Thomas’s lies, we wouldn’t be in such a predicament,” Qurong snapped.
“Oh, please, you can’t possibly blame this on her,” Patricia sa
id. “You should look no further than your own priest.”
“He is not my priest.”
Qurong glanced at the door flap. It wasn’t in good form to say such things about Ba’al aloud. Not all was at peace in the Horde camp. But none of this mattered to Chelise at the moment. She was without Thomas. And Samuel might be heading to the Gathering this very moment, intent on taking albinos with him to wage war on the Horde.
If he did, the Horde’s days might be numbered.
“Cassak, see that she leaves her enemy camp without danger,” Qurong said, heading for the door. “I have business.”
“Qurong!” Patricia cried.
“You’re not my enemy, Father,” Chelise said. “I love you as much as my own life.”
But her father marched out without another word.
All is lost, Chelise thought. I’ve lost my husband, my son, and now my father, who is going to wage war on my people.
The world waits for you, Chelise.
34
FOUR DAYS advising the Eramite army had proved to Samuel that he not only made a good choice in coming to Eram, but a choice that would reshape history. A choice that would soon be heralded as the definitive turning point in the era of Horde supremacy. Thomas of Hunter had become a legend because of a choice like this one, and now his son, Samuel of Hunter, would follow in his footsteps and be praised among the Circle as the one who liberated albinos from the scourge called Horde.
The children would engrave his name on bracelets, and men would sit around fires exaggerating his deeds until he was nothing less than a god in their eyes. And women . . . he’d never married, because deep down inside he knew that he was destined for greatness. While others his age spent day and night trying to impress demanding women, he’d spent his days refining his crafts of war. Now the young maidens would keep their hopeful eyes on him wherever he went.
But he hadn’t counted on this particular woman, who found her way into Eram’s inner circle twelve hours earlier. Her name was Janae, she said. She was an albino, she was disturbingly intelligent, and she was more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen. Which gave him pause, because he’d seen all albinos and would certainly have noticed this one among the rest.
“No, my lord,” he said, glancing back at the woman who studied them from her horse, twenty yards behind. “I don’t think you should follow her advice. I think you should follow mine.”
He and Eram sat on horses flanked by Eram’s personal four-man guard, overlooking the eastern valley where Samuel’s men were working with Forest Guard turned Horde. They’d agreed to place four thousand men under Samuel’s command, an elite force of the best fighters Eram could offer. They would be led by as many as four hundred albino fighters, assuming Samuel could come through on his end of the bargain. They’d know soon enough. Tomorrow Samuel would take his small army west, announce his intentions to the Gathering, and challenge any who sought justice to join him in leading a guerrilla warfare campaign against Qurong.
Samuel would take his army, divide them into ten tightly knit, elite units, and station them on all sides of Qurongi City. Their first attack would be surgical and brutal, leaving Qurong’s army with deep wounds to lick.
The second, third, and fourth attacks would follow immediately from three sides before the Horde could properly reassemble. Even if they did manage to form up, they would be confused without a clear campaign to execute or an army to engage. Within a matter of months, Samuel would soften Qurong’s massive army, and then Eram would bring the full weight of his own one hundred fifty thousand to crush the Horde.
It was a reasonable plan, with almost no chance for failure, assuming Samuel could persuade enough of the Circle to join them. Assuming Eram didn’t change his mind for fear of betrayal.
Assuming this woman named Janae didn’t bring the whole thing down with her ridiculous talk of an immediate full-scale war on the authority of a Shataiki queen named Marsuuv.
“Please, just look at her. Have you ever seen a witch in service of a queen Shataiki? Not until now.”
Eram followed his eyes and twisted his lips into a sly smile. “An albino witch? That’s a new one. Where have you been hiding these stunning creatures?”
One thing was certain: Eram loved the ladies. Samuel had never known a man with such a voracious appetite for women. The Eramite leader made no attempt to hide his displays of affection whenever or wherever the impulse struck him, and yet he did it with tact, like a gentleman, despite the fact that his intentions were well-known. His people seemed to love him for it. Their leader was a passionate, virile man who had the backbone to lead them out into the desert. Who would castrate such a man?
“Forgive me for pointing it out,” Samuel said, “but this isn’t about a woman, however seductive.”
Eram’s grin softened, and the moment he shifted his eyes Samuel knew he’d spoken out of turn. “Are you looking for a knife in your throat?”
“No, my lord. Forgive me. But surely you can’t be bowing to her nonsense.”
“Bowing? You beg forgiveness for one jab and follow it with a slice to my head?”
“Forgive—”
“You’re a dangerous man, Samuel of Hunter. I served under your father when you were a pup, and I see you have his audacity.”
Samuel was glad for the shift in subject. “Like father, like son, they say.”
“No, lad. Don’t make the mistake of assuming you will ever be even half the man your father is. I would have laid my life down for him on the worst of days, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t do the same today. He’s a legend without peer and always will be.”
“And yet you don’t follow him.”
“I don’t follow his ideas. But I bow to the man. And him alone.” The leader took a deep breath and cracked his neck with a jerk of his head. “To the matter at hand . . .” A crazed look lit his eyes. “I think the woman has more than seduction to offer us.”
“Yes, danger. Take the whole army to the Gathering? Now? It’s a huge gamble.”
“I see no danger to me. If she’s wrong, I lose nothing but some time and effort. If she’s right, on the other hand, she’d replace your lofty status as the hero, isn’t that it?”
The Eramite leader was a brilliant tactician in political matters; he’d pegged Samuel’s fear even before Samuel had fully formed his own understanding of it.
“But I’m not one to change with the wind,” Eram said. “I’ve given my word to you, so now I leave this matter in your hands. You decide. Come.” He turned his horse from the valley and walked it toward Janae, who still watched them from her perch under a tree.
She wore a red cape with a short black cloak that covered fighting leathers. Odd, this red cape. The breeze lifted long black strands of hair from her shoulders and wrapped them around a porcelain white neck. He’d noticed a light rash on the skin at the base of her neck and on her wrists. Similar to a rash he’d noticed on his own skin yesterday.
Rash or no rash, this woman who’d come to them bearing a challenge from the Shataiki was truly stunning. It was her eyes, Samuel thought. They watched above perpetually curved lips, cutting deeply into his mind. Honestly, she frightened him, not only for her potential threat to his stature among new friends, but for her effect on him personally. Unlike Eram, he resented the notion of seduction now.
The guard held back as Eram and Samuel approached her under the tree. “So, the mistress of a Shataiki queen has brought the poor Eramites salvation, is that it?” Eram said, his smile matching hers.
Janae shifted her eyes back to Samuel. Her longing stares had favored him above Eram since the patrol first deposited her in Eram’s court. For now she seemed satisfied to simply look into his eyes.
“How is it that an albino mates with a Shataiki?” Eram asked. “Hmmm?”
“How is it that an albino becomes a half-breed?” she returned, eyes still on Samuel.
“Indeed. The world has changed. Now the most beautiful come from the Black Forest.”
/>
“Your flattery means nothing to me, Eram, old boy. I’m fascinated with this stallion.”
He chuckled, genuinely amused, Samuel thought.
“And for the record,” the woman said, now exchanging a smile with the leader, “I am not the mistress of any queen. Marsuuv, the queen who sent me, has another for his lover. Billy. Perhaps you know him as Billos. As for me, I don’t come from the Black Forest. I’m from another world, where my kind are better known as vampires. But you can call me the messiah. And I am mistress to no one but Teeleh, my lord and savior.”
She spoke as one reciting poetry, a minstrel from the dark side who captivated even jaded men like Eram with her every word. A wicked woman who melted hearts. Surely Eram saw that much.
“A witch from another world,” Eram said, “who comes to tell us that she can deliver the albinos if only we follow her. That if we take our full army to the Circle, they will join us for war. In three days’ time, no less.”
“I am here to serve, my lord. Not to lead. And unless my aim was to seduce the bravest leader in the land, I would be a fool to come with words alone.”
Janae slipped her hand into her cloak and withdrew a small glass bottle, perfectly formed, perhaps three inches tall. She held it between her thumb and forefinger and twirled it.
“This, my lovelies, is the answer to all of your prayers.”
Samuel cleared his throat. “A bottle filled with Teeleh’s urine will save us? Tell me why a half-breed who still follows Elyon in the ways of old, and an albino who rejects Teeleh, should entertain the mistress of Teeleh himself?”
She ignored his second question, as if it were too silly to take seriously.
“You might be surprised to know what a single drop of Teeleh’s blood can do. But for now, we’ll have to do with the Raison Strain, a brutal, incurable virus that destroys the body from the inside in a matter of hours.”
“We have our poisons,” Eram said. “So you have another. What of it?”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot, neither of you has a PhD in biochemistry.”
Samuel didn’t know what she meant, but he heard the mockery in her tone.
“Let me put it to you this way: if I could deliver what I hold in my hand to the Horde army, the condition that afflicts them already would become worse. Much worse. It would immobilize them in minutes. A strong army could wipe them out.”
