by Sharon Hinck
My head was starting to hurt, so I dropped the subject.
Mark pulled me down an alley. Few people lingered this far from the town’s center, and quiet wrapped the streets. We rounded a corner. The scalloped white wall stood in front of us.
I caught my breath again at its beauty.
Mark didn’t notice my fascination, but led me to a small pocket door in one of the curves of the wall. He slid a latch, and we stepped through.
We were on the far side of Lyric, away from the road to the station. Miles of rolling grey-green hills stretched out before us. The landscape tugged at my heart, making me wish I were a foal in the spring. I wanted to kick up my hooves and gallop over one ridge after another just to see what was behind the next hill. I took a deep breath of the moist air and glanced at Mark.
He was watching my reaction. His face softened in a shy half-smile. “This is one of my favorite places in Lyric. I never thought I’d see it again. I wanted to show it to you. And we can talk here without being interrupted.”
I gave him an answering smile, but it faded quickly. Each time I softened toward him, a painful ache throbbed in my heart. Not a physical pain, like the dull soreness lingering in my chest, but every bit as real. If each tiny step toward healing our relationship would hurt this much, I didn’t know if I could do it. “Are you sure the Council isn’t watching us? Are you sure they won’t come and drag me away again?”
Mark looked confused. “I’m part of the Council. They won’t hurt you.”
Right. That’s probably what Tristan thought, too. If Cameron was any representation, I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the People’s ruling Council. I slipped my hand out of his to brush hair back from my face and walked ahead of him toward a small grove of trees.
Gnarled honey-colored branches smelled of cinnamon, with bark as smooth as polished driftwood. I could see where Mark got his love of woodworking. He grew up with some amazing varieties of trees. By the time I reached the woods, I was short of breath. The weakness was an unfamiliar feeling. With each passing day in this world, I had grown stronger. Even the bumps and bruises of learning to fight and ride had left no lasting stiffness. In fact, I was becoming very spoiled. When I got home, it would be a huge adjustment having sore muscles that took days to recover, or bruises that didn’t heal within moments. I had grown used to my Restorer strength. This strange wobbliness in my limbs now was unnerving.
Mark was right behind me. He put an arm around me and asked, “Are you okay?”
I didn’t push him away. “I think so.” I tried to take a deep breath. “Must be something those drugs did to me.”
Mark threw his cloak down over the damp moss. We sat down side by side, resting our backs against a large tree trunk. For a moment, we were back in the North Woods on a hike. I’d pull out my field guide and Mark would groan. He’d see a hawk, get out his camera, fiddle with the settings, and the hawk would fly away, leaving only a memory in our minds. Then we’d laugh and continue on our hike, reminding each other of the hot tub back at the lodge when our bodies started aching.
“You better start at the beginning,” Mark said.
“First I want to know about the portal.”
Mark shifted and glanced away, but I tucked in my chin and glared. He let his breath out with a sigh. “Three stones. I kept them because—well—I just couldn’t throw them away. But I knew I’d never go back again. I hid them. One was in the old mannequin and one was behind the insulation under the eaves. One was in an old box of tax records. I kept them separated so there was no way they could accidentally create a portal. I don’t know how you did it.”
Was he honestly blaming me? “I kept hearing sounds—voices. I moved some things around trying to find where the sounds came from. It just happened.”
Mark looked somber. “That kind of supports the notion that you were called here.” He didn’t look any happier about his theory than I was.
“What about the notion that this is all your fault? That you shouldn’t have left dangerous stones that could jerk me into this world just sitting around? What if the kids had gone up in the attic?”
“No one ever went up there. I’d almost forgotten about them. I didn’t even know if they would still work. It’s been so many years.” Mark could almost compete with me when it came to being defensive. He stopped himself and looked me squarely in the face. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, and I wish I had destroyed them years ago.” He waited for a moment. We both had a lot of practice at apologizing after all our years of marriage. “Will you forgive me?” he asked in an almost formal tone.
I wasn’t planning on restoration this quickly. I wasn’t ready to even think about his dishonesty with me all these years, much less forgive it. But I decided I could let go of this one grievance. Keeping the portal stones had led to a lot of trouble, but he had had no way to know what would happen.
“I forgive you,” I said, looking away. He would know my forgiveness was limited and reluctant. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his face.
“Your turn,” he said. “Tell me everything.”
I did. I told him how it felt to wake up in a strange world and immediately see Tristan battling the Rhusican. I recounted the frightening emptiness of Shamgar, Kieran’s suspicion of me, Tristan’s offer of help. I explained about my sword and how it came through the portal transformed and somehow gave me inner strength. I told him about everyone I had met that day on the transport: Cameron, the Rhusican girl, Bekkah, Linette, Wade, and the others. When I tried to describe the poison that overwhelmed me on the trail to Braide Wood, I faltered.
Mark took my hand.
I let him hold it, but I couldn’t look at him. I hurried on with my story. I spoke of Tara’s welcome, how Tristan’s family took me in, and how Lukyan gave me his official approval as the eldest songkeeper. I hadn’t realized how much had happened to me in a few short weeks until I tried to itemize each event and every new relationship. I sneaked glances at Mark as I talked, measuring his reactions. When I told him about my guardian training, he looked dumbfounded.
“My sword work isn’t too great, but I love riding the lehkan.”
He smiled and shook his head. “That’s incredible. I never could get the hang of riding those things.”
As I told him about my prayer time with Lukyan, and the peace I felt after confronting the need to obey God’s call, his face grew somber. He squeezed my hand, but I don’t think he realized it. Lukyan had asked me if I was willing to walk any road the One chose. It hurt me to think about that question. Right now I was infuriated at the road the One had led me on. I felt confused and bereft. Peace and confidence had been crushed out of me in Cameron’s inner office. Then my hope had been shredded by the discovery of Mark’s twenty years of deceit.
When I told him about the Rhusican that had gripped Wade’s and Linette’s mind, and how I confronted it, my husband let go of my hand and stood up. He paced in agitation as I described its attack and my panicked but lethal defense. He looked at me as if seeing a stranger.
I was glad he was getting a taste of the foreignness I felt when I looked at him. Maybe we were both different people now.
I told him about Kieran’s brief return to Braide Wood and the way I’d felt the One speak through me to him.
“But I don’t think I talked him out of having dealings with Hazor,” I said wistfully. “One more way I’ve failed.”
Mark stopped pacing and sat down again. “You can’t know that. Maybe what you said to him changed his mind. Maybe he went off somewhere else but plans to help Tristan when he can.”
I gave him a grateful look, and then brightened as I told him about helping Kendra break free after two seasons in the thrall of Rhusican mind poison.
“I’ve never met her,” Mark said, “but I saw Kendra once from a distance. She was with Tristan at a Feast day celebration. My friends and I
all had crushes on her after that.”
I had to smile at the picture of Mark as a teen, mooning over Kendra’s exotic beauty.
“So what were you and Linette able to figure out about these Rhusicans?” he asked.
Maybe he finally understood the danger building in his former homeland and my urgency to do something. “We know that the best way to fight their influence is with the Verses. The Rhusicans don’t work in the same way every time, so that makes it hard to know what to expect. The man who poisoned Kendra talked with her day after day, and when the suggestions took hold, she went so far into herself that she nearly died. I only spoke a few words with the Rhusican girl, but later the impressions she planted clouded my thinking entirely. Tristan just had one small thought he didn’t realize was implanted by the Rhusican he killed. It kept him from trying to bring Kendra back, but it didn’t affect him in any other way that we could tell. And the Rhusican talking to Wade and Linette seemed to have some sort of hold over them, but it snapped the instant he died. Tristan also told me that the Rhusicans interact with lots of people without any problems. I can’t figure out what their agenda is . . . other than just causing general misery.” I sorted the clues like different colored patches of fabric for a quilt, trying to arrange them in a pattern that made sense. In spite of myself, I was enjoying organizing the pieces with Mark’s help. We had always been good at giving each other new angles on a problem.
“And the Rhusican woman you said was working with Cameron?” Mark asked.
I flinched and shook my head. My heart started racing just remembering. I couldn’t relive that.
Mark reached over and brushed the hair back from my face, then let his hand rest against my cheek. I met his eyes. Worry, love, and compassion looked back at me. “It’s okay,” he said softly.
“I . . . I can’t. I can’t talk about it right now.” It was my turn to get up and pace. I continued my narrative, filling Mark in on the attack on Morsal Plains, Bekkah’s death, the information I had learned from Nolan, and the Council guards coming to drag me to Lyric and send Tristan off to Cauldron Falls.
Mark looked back toward the city wall, deep in thought.
I felt another twinge of pain in my chest—more of a nerve memory than actual pain—and sank back to sit beside Mark, resting my head on my knees and trying to take deep breaths. “So now what?” I mumbled into my knees. “Should we go back to Braide Wood? I want to see how everyone is.”
“Tomorrow is the Feast, so we can’t do anything then. But after that, we have a day before the Council meets.” Mark was thinking out loud. “Do you think you could sense if someone’s mind has been taken over by a Rhusican?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. With some people it’s obvious. Other times I get a sense of something hidden, but don’t really know what it is. Why?”
“There is no way the Council would go against the Verses like this—allowing the Rhusicans to live here, buying long range weapons that the Verses prohibit, trading with Hazor—unless their minds are affected. If we visited the chief councilmember of each clan, maybe you could see what’s been done to their minds. Maybe even heal them.”
“Restore them,” I said, looking up.
Mark’s face blanched.
Why did that term upset him so much? He grew up in this world. He knew of the Restorers as great heroes of his people.
“But there is something else going on,” Mark said. “Tell me again about when the Council guards came to Braide Wood.”
I frowned in concentration. “Wade ran into the clearing to warn us. He said the Council guards were coming and we needed to run.”
“Slow down. Anything might be important. What else did he say?”
“He said they had taken the records, and Tristan seemed upset, but everything happened so fast—”
“The Records? Are you sure? Where were they taking them?”
“To Cameron, I think. Yeah . . . when I was locked up, I heard Cameron talking to Case about how he had them all now. He was just waiting for one from Blue Knoll.”
All the color washed from Mark’s face.
“Mark, what’s wrong? What’s the big deal about some records?”
“Susan, you know how important the Verses are to the people here? How they are passed on to the children, and reviewed every day and at every Feast? It’s the way God chose to reveal Himself to them.”
I nodded. I had figured that out. The Verses gave them a code to live by, but also important truth about the One’s love for them and His plan to send a Deliverer.
“Well, even with great care, there is a danger of things being forgotten, or small words being changed as the Songs are taught year after year. So each clan was given a Record.”
“A book?”
“No, it’s a recording. More like . . . a CD of the One’s voice. The permanent, perfect Verses. Once a year, the songkeepers of each clan play the Records for their tribe.”
I was processing this, still not understanding why Mark was more upset about this than anything I had told him so far.
“It’s like . . .” Mark struggled to find a parallel from our world that I would understand, “the Torah, the Holy Grail. No. It’s like the ark of the covenant. It’s the One’s very presence. What is Cameron going to do with them? He wouldn’t dare destroy them. Even with Rhusicans helping him, he couldn’t get away with that.”
Cameron’s plot began to make sense to me. “Mark, he wants to change the Records. I heard him. What did he mean? What will he try to change?”
“Cameron has always wanted us to stop relying on Verses and guardians and instead trade for high-tech weapons.” Mark rubbed his hand over his jaw. “He’s never had support before now. I’ll bet he wants to alter the Verses that say the People should let the One defend them. He’ll twist things to say they can make alliances with other nations—use foreign weapons.” Anger grew in his voice as he guessed at Cameron’s agenda.
“Is it possible?”
“I don’t know. If he has a transtech to help him and overlays small parts . . . maybe.” Mark’s jaw clenched. He jumped to his feet, pulled me up, and started striding back to Lyric. “You don’t have to worry about getting revenge on Cameron. I’ll kill him myself.”
I stopped short and tugged my hand away, planting my fists on my hips. “Wait a minute.”
Mark paused to look at me, but shifted from foot to foot.
“I told you that Cameron had threatened me, tortured me, and probably would have killed me if he’d had more time. And you wanted me to forget about it and go home. Now you figure out he’s going to erase a few tapes, and suddenly you’re ready to kill him? Where do I rate with you?”
Mark froze. “Susan, I didn’t realize everything that happened to you.” He started to reach toward me, but drew his hand back as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “It’s not that I didn’t care about you. I just didn’t understand how bad things were. And the Records . . . do you realize what it means? If the People start picking which parts to keep and which parts to throw away, they won’t have any truth left.”
I nodded, still feeling a little hurt that defending the One stirred so much more passion in Mark than defending me. “Okay. But you’re the one who told me we couldn’t just go around killing councilmembers. If we’re both arrested for murder, we won’t be able to visit all the clan leaders or speak to the Council.”
“But we have to do something. We can’t let Cameron change the Records.”
I thought for a minute and then grinned. “So we go get the Records back. Tonight. Before he can change them.”
Mark’s eyes began to sparkle, and he grabbed me into a bear hug. “Operation ‘Records Recovery.’” He pressed his face against my hair.
I felt a rush of warmth toward him. This time, letting myself feel closer to him didn’t hurt quite as much.
Chapter
21
Mark banged into me in the dark, then hissed with pain as he pulled back from the bruising hilt of my weapon. “You should have left the sword,” he whispered.
“Shh. I told you I’m not going anywhere without it. Someone’s down at the end of the hall. Get back.”
We pulled back around the corner. “How can you see anything? It’s pitch black down there.”
“Mom fed me lots of carrots.” I didn’t bother looking back at him, but I knew he was rolling his eyes. “Okay, it’s clear now. Hurry!”
We entered the dark hall and found the door to Cameron’s office. Sweat broke out on my temples. There was no way I could step back into that room. “I’ll stand guard.”
Mark didn’t argue. He pulled a gadget from his belt and disabled the magnetic lock on the door. Leave it to Mark to find a source for tech-toys after only a few days on this side of the portal. What was the equivalent of a hardware store in Lyric, anyway? Probably just as full of inexplicable bits and pieces as in our world. He slipped into Cameron’s office and a glow appeared from under the door. He must have palmed the lever for the room’s lightwalls.
I winced at the obvious sign of our presence and drew my sword in case anyone else was prowling the corridors. Time dragged, and I jumped when Mark opened the door behind me. He had shut down the lightwalls, and he locked the door behind him.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “I searched everywhere.”
I thought of the back stairs that Case had used. “Let’s try downstairs.” It took me a moment to get my bearings and find the unmarked door that led down to the cell where I had been kept.
“I never knew this was down here,” Mark said, leading the way down the stairs. His footsteps sounded heavy on the metal treads.
“Mark, keep it quiet.” I stayed on the balls of my feet, somewhat smugly demonstrating my ability to move silently, but my sword banged against a railing. The clash echoed against the concrete and steel walls of the basement. To his credit, Mark didn’t comment. We paused, and I stretched my hearing to scan for anyone nearby. “Okay. Let’s go.” I started feeling my way forward and banged my head against something protruding from the wall. “Ow! Why didn’t we bring a light?”
