by Ted Dekker
Darsal couldn’t stop twisting around in her saddle and swinging her legs like a child as Johnis—Josef—turned their course west. She would be lucky to accomplish anything more than a free trip to the nuthouse at this rate. Her thoughts centered on what to do next, how to stop the tide.
She sagged forward in her saddle and rode on, separated from the others by every means possible. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour.
Half-consciously, Darsal spurred her horse and rode out to circle and look for any sign of danger. She drove her horse on, eleven seeing nothing but the occasional flicker that could have been Cassak’s men, Eram’s men, or a bat of either variety.
Marak called after her, but she wasn’t ready to acknowledge him yet, unprepared to again face persuasion or death. Marak could wait. She needed Elyon.
Darsal went into a full gallop over the dunes, streaking over sand for almost a mile before remembering to circle back to catch up to the others.
She wasn’t given the chance. Marak appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her horse by the reins. The animal squealed and reared. Darsal hit the ground hard. He jumped down after her and grabbed both arms. Darsal lashed at him, tried to get up, but Marak’s grip held fast.
“What are you thinking? If you were going to run away, you should have done it long before now!”
“I wasn’t running! I was watching for Eram’s men. I used to be Guard. It’s habit.”
Marak tensed, searched her face, then exhaled and plopped beside her, one arm across her in a defensive posture.
“Dars—” He took a ragged breath. “Oh, Darsal, what did you go do that for?”
“I . . . wasn’t thinking.”
Without warning, Marak leaned over and held her against his chest. She was too stunned to react. “No, you weren’t.” The growl had left his voice.
He lifted her carefully and rocked her for a few moments before letting her sit. Her mind reeled, desperate to catch up. Marak pushed back her headscarf and brushed away strands of hair that had fallen loose of her braids.
Elyon, is he . . . ?
“I’m sorry. You went into a gallop, and we all thought . . . Well, it was me go after you or my men.”
He wiped her face with the edge of his cloak. Darsal caught his wrist and rose up on her knees, wincing at the pain in her ribs.
His expression went flat. He put her headscarf back up and drew it across her face. And she felt it. In the depth of her being was the cruel emotion she hadn’t known from the time Billos had thrown his arms around her and saved them all, to the day Marak tried to kill her but turned his back forever on that door.
And now she knew it again, a thousand times stronger.
Marak had frozen. He shook his head at her, even though he looked just as stunned as she felt.
“It isn’t possible, Darsal. It would never work.”
“But you do care for me. Don’t you?”
“We don’t have feelings for albinos, Darsal. Nor do they for us.”
“Forget us and them!” She knotted her fists and leaned toward him.
He cared. He had to.
His hands were on her arms, but not in the rough fashion she was accustomed to. Marak didn’t quite make eye contact. When he looked away, her emotions boiled over.
“I like you, woman. I trust you. Isn’t that enough?”
Darsal squeezed her eyes shut. The volcano was erupting, and she could do nothing about it, nothing about the pain in her heart and the forbidden words gnawing at the tip of her tongue.
“Marak, the truth is I . . . I love you. Don’t you understand? I’ve stayed for you!”
“You can’t!”
He hadn’t moved. The man was like ice. He’d have to kill her now. He didn’t have a choice, not after this. And that infuriated her.
“Why not? Who says I can’t love you? You’re human, right? Or is the truth that I’m not human enough for you? Is that it?”
“Darsal—”
“I love you, Marak, and I want you to love me, too, and see Elyon loves you, and drown with him and become like me!”
“Darsal.”
“But if that doesn’t happen, then I really am doing all this for nothing, and I really am a complete fool like you say! It’s—”
Marak snatched her off balance, one arm around her. His lips brushed her neck, her scarred cheek. “I doubted.”
Darsal looked up at his face. Marak tipped her head back and cupped the base of her chin in his warm fingers.
“General.”
The greeting sliced between them. Marak threw her back. Darsal scrambled away, and they both found their feet. She yanked her cowl over her face, pulse spiking. Caught. Caught and dead.
Cassak sat on horseback before them. He dropped down and threw the reins at Darsal. The general and the captain sized each other up.
Cassak saluted Marak, expression grim. “The Eramites have been following us.”
Marak remained silent.
That cold sensation slithered along, the same she had felt from Sucrow before.
“I sent some messengers to remind them this was not a war party nor a band of spies. We do not wish a fight; we are at peace and intend to stay that way. It is only a temporary solution, however.”
Darsal peeked up at her general. He traded another look with Cassak, then gave a nod, but it was a full minute before he spoke, choosing his words carefully.
“That will suffice. Peace is best for all at this stage. Tell them to keep their fires far from our expedition. We go only as far as the canyon.”
Cassak looked at Darsal, staring until she could no longer stand it. “The road is muddy.” His eyes drifted back to her general. “Perhaps we should heed the warning.”
Marak looked angry. “What will you do?”
The captain hesitated. “I will watch. There is no need, as of yet, to report the matter to Qurong. I haven’t decided what, if anything, to say to Sucrow.”
Darsal’s head shot up. They were not talking about the rebel general, the half-breed Eram. Cassak was warning Marak about falling in love with an albino.
“Some treasures are best left hidden.” Marak bowed his head. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll see you promoted.”
Cassak frowned. “It would not be wise at this time.” He came closer to Darsal and inspected her, grimaced at the smell of her skin.
The captain was making a pronouncement. Judgment on their sin.
Marak mounted Cassak’s horse. His and Darsal’s had run off. Cassak bound Darsal’s wrists and tossed the other end of the chain to Marak.
Cassak leaned close to Darsal’s ear and whispered. “Another stunt like that, and I will go to Qurong. After today it is over. Understood?”
Renounce her love and save Marak’s life.
Darsal’s heart sank to her heels. She couldn’t let him go. Elyon had changed her heart for these Scabs, for Marak, and he wouldn’t release her. So she couldn’t release Marak.
Cassak released her and gave his horse a thump. “Good.”
To Marak, Cassak said, “I’ll find your horses. The canyon is just over that rise.” He pointed. “Welcome to the Teardrop.”
twelve
Marak towed Darsal up the rise. Cassak followed at a distance, then disappeared once more into the dunes. Of all the foolish things he could have done! He’d let his guard down for one moment. For one second tasted the forbidden.
At the same second Cassak came looking for his missing general.
“You executed your own family on principle,” he could imagine the captain saying. “You round up albinos and kill them on orders, out of loyalty. And now you throw your principles out the window for what—a rotting corpse of a woman? Why don’t you just make love to the dead!”
Maybe Cassak was right to steal the amulet and take it to the priest. Marak was getting too close to this. Either Sucrow had used his magic on Cassak, or Cassak really did throw loyalty and friendship to the wind. Which?
At the top of the rise, Mar
ak stopped his horse and stared down over the teardrop-shaped gash in the desert floor. The north end made the bulge, the south the point.
As if Elyon himself were crying.
Now, that was a silly thought. As silly as taking an albino woman in his arms and kissing her. As silly as wishing he’d gone ahead and given in to the impulse completely.
Darsal stood near the horse’s head, stroking its neck. The chain that now bound her to his horse clattered. “I’ve never seen one this big.”
“Seen what? A canyon?” He furrowed his brow.
The canyon was barren from what he could see, save a narrow path that wandered around the rim before starting down. The rest of their number had already approached but hadn’t started down.
“A Black Forest.”
“Cassak’s watching our backs. What are you worried about?” He started down, wondering if his old friend at his back still meant anything to him. Darsal submitted to the pull of her tether.
“I’m worried about what happens when Josef uses that medallion.”
He paused and looked down at her. “Why are you always so insistent that you’re in the right? This reasoning is what has Cassak trying to decide if he’s going to inform Qurong as to what I’ve done.”
She closed her mouth.
“That wasn’t fair. You may take your own life lightly, Darsal, but why must you expect the same of me? Isn’t it enough that I—”
He still couldn’t say it, and hated the question that would follow.
Darsal’s brow creased.
Forget it.
Marak spurred the horse fast enough to make Darsal run and unable to ask any more questions. Not enough to drag her.
Run Darsal did, easier than he’d expected.
Marak pressed on. Sucrow, Josef and Arya, his three commanders, and the two Throaters waited at the edge of the canyon, their eyes fixed on him and his rebellious albino slave. Marak slowed to a walk. He didn’t look at her.
“I see you’ve caught her,” Sucrow sneered, turning his staff. “That should remind you not to trust the wench.”
“Who said I did?”
He glimpsed the rim of the canyon, splashed orange and red with sunlight. Purple and rust streaked along the upper portion. Stunning. A bridge spanned the length of the teardrop, and, just as Cassak said, a path led around the edge of the canyon and down into its basin.
He looked instead at Josef, whose appearance had changed. The younger man’s skin was pale, almost transparent. His body looked harder, more muscular. Skin and hair almost aglow. And his eyes. A purple cast.
“Show us the way.”
“We’ll have to leave the horses partway down. The brush gets too thick toward the south end.” Josef reached inside his shirt. “It’s steep.”
“There’s more than brush down there.” Darsal’s voice carried a strange edge to it.
“No one asked your opinion,” Sucrow snapped. Marak didn’t take the time to correct him.
“Patience,” Josef said. “She is correct. Yet such is why we possess the amulet. Withdraw such.”
Marak eyed him, curious at the strange speech. He took the medallion out of his pocket.
A loud shriek crashed in from overhead, accompanied by a whoosh of leathery wings. Marak ducked, arm raised, and looked up.
His mind revolted against what his eyes saw. Shadows fell over their faces, as if there had been an eclipse. A black, furry bat the size of a human child with beady, red eyes flew at them again, claws extended, fangs bared.
The entire expedition fell into shock.
Josef snatched the amulet from Marak, held up his hand, and shouted. The beast dove over their heads, circled high, and swooped down into the canyon.
The bat disappeared into a black gash in the ground. Trees with black bark and wood sprang out of the canyon several hundred feet and blotted out the sun. The muddy road ran around the edge of the canyon before heading straight down, beneath the bridge, completely lost to the cold woods.
He heard Sucrow unleash a tirade at him for stealing the amulet back.
“Now do you believe me?” Josef and Darsal spoke at once, then silenced when they realized it. “The amulet shall protect us from such,” Josef finished.
Believe them? Marak’s heart lodged in his throat. Josef ’s eyes hardened. Alien, inhuman.
There was a black forest. Darsal was right. She was right all along. A chill wound around his spine. What else is she right about?
He shook it off and rode high in the saddle, offered a hand to Darsal. “Get up.” She obeyed without hesitation, content to lean against his back.
Boneheaded fool . . . Marak could almost see his brother’s narrowed eyes, his crossed arms, his exasperation.
Not now. You mean not ever. And didn’t you make a promise to Darsal? He’d forgotten. It was insignificant. But Darsal was right; he never should have let Sucrow take the girl.
That’s more like it.
Would you get out of my head?
I’m dead, brother.
Marak grunted, then turned his attention to the priest. “Sucrow, release Arya. Arya, ride with Josef, and the two of you take us down.”
“But she—”
“I said let her go!” Marak snapped.
A Shataiki had just attacked them and vanished into its lair. They were walking into hell. And the priest was still on his quest for power.
Sucrow untied Arya and allowed her to swing off the horse. Arya marched over to Josef and jumped up behind him. The priest growled and remounted. Marak ordered his commanders and the two Throaters to wait for them to return.
He gave Josef the word, and the three horses started down.
Josef took them around to a ledge with more slope to it and picked his way toward the creek. The lower they descended, the darker the forest became. Bat wings slapped around them, and the occasional pair of beady eyes glared through the trees. Sucrow began to chant softly, in words Marak didn’t understand.
Darsal slid her arm around his waist.
He took her hand and, in the darkness that now surrounded them all, kissed it lightly.
thirteen
Johnis led them downward in a spiral trajectory, like going down a drain or a whirlpool. Ever downward, into a pit. Into sewage and waste. Pitch-black trees with rotten, black leaves that curled. Even the grass and dirt were black. The canyon was perilous, and everything was obscenely still.
Deeper they went, the droplet shape narrowing with time, walls caving in around them. Darsal heard a dripping somewhere. A black waterfall.
“Elyon, save us,” she whispered.
A bat screeched overhead, underscoring her plea.
“Were you ever really alone, Darsal? Really?” Elyon asked gently.
I’m alone now.
But that wasn’t true either.
Marak was here. Johnis and Silvie were alive. The rest of the Circle was alive somewhere.
As long as Johnis’s plan didn’t play out, they would stay that way. And right now she had no means of stopping him.
Except Elyon’s charge of love.
Would that be enough . . . ?
The forest taunted her. It closed in around her and groped at her, crushed her lungs. Sucrow was chanting somewhere, an incantation that sounded familiar to her, though she couldn’t remember where she’d heard such a hideous thing.
Thoughts of the last lair she’d crawled into clawed at her, mocked her.
They reached the bottom and followed a murky, stale stream until the path narrowed too much for the horses. Darsal didn’t want to leave the animals, but Marak had her tether all three, and they pressed on.
“You’re sure you know where you’re going?” she asked Johnis.
“I’m sure, albino,” he snapped.
“There are things stronger than amulets,” Darsal whispered back, ignoring his jibe. “Stronger than Leedhan and bats.”
Johnis didn’t respond. He led them on foot through thorny brush and thick, black mud, trav
eling along a streambed. Even Sucrow held his silence. All remained pensive and still. The stream rushed into a waterfall, and Johnis led them around the dark, bubbling water.
A shaman once had told Darsal that bodies of water were living things. They laughed and played along the shore. This water was different though. This water cackled like a villain about to take his prey as it spilled over a hillside and splashed into a cauldron below.
A shallow clearing opened up, creating a kind of bowl. Headstones rose up out of the water, wrapped in mist. In the middle of the small lake was a platform.
An eerie, purplish haze enveloped them. Darsal pressed against Marak, then remembered Cassak’s warning and shifted away. All around them the trees were weighed down by black bats with glowing red eyes and sharp claws and teeth.
Memories haunted her mind. She had to work to push them aside.
Johnis looked at Silvie, then Sucrow. “I need some water. And the rest. You’ve brought it?”
Sucrow nodded. He withdrew from his bag a silver bowl that Silvie took from him. She waded into the water. Next came a clay bowl and a small leather pouch. The priest began to chant.
Johnis took a silver knife from Sucrow; then they both followed Silvie out to the platform, their supplies held over their heads.
Darsal and Marak waited on the bank. Johnis couldn’t hear her. Darsal sank into a crouch and put her chin on her fists, elbows on her knees.
Bloody Leedhan.
Johnis stood sentinel, his face white, while Sucrow and Silvie made preparations. Silvie filled the silver bowl with water and placed it in the center. Sucrow took what looked like a makeshift altar and set it out. Incense soon wafted through the air and flooded their nostrils.
A nauseating stench. Where had she smelled that? The priest’s invocation continued, witnessed by hundreds of red-eyed Shataiki with visions of carnage in their heads.
What was Johnis doing? It was supposed to be a simple incantation.
Darsal could barely watch. So Johnis had needed Sucrow after all. Sucrow withdrew a bird with bound wings from a small cage she hadn’t seen earlier and killed it, pouring its blood over the altar. The bats swarming around them began to thrum.
