by Ted Dekker
By this light her hand was nearly flesh-toned. The disease was mostly covered by morst, and what he saw by the torch’s glow took him completely off guard.
This was a woman’s hand. Delicate and gentle, resting lightly on the page with one finger extended as he’d requested. Her fingernails were painted red, neatly manicured.
The sight immobilized him. Time stilled. A terrible empathy rose through his throat. This was how Justin saw her, without her disease.
She removed her hand. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I . . .” He looked into her eyes. He’d never been so close to any Scab before. Less than a foot separated her face from his. She was quite beautiful. Her eyes looked hazel and her cheeks blushed with a sweet rose color. It was a trick of the light—he knew that—but for a moment her disease was gone in his eyes.
“I was just noticing what a good student you would make,” Thomas said.
“How so?”
“The tools of the trade. Gentle fingers. Clear eyes. Now if we can only work on your mind, you may read this Book yet.”
The clouds passed over and the room brightened. Thomas returned his eyes to the page. “You see this word?”
“Yes.”
“You know . . .” He glanced at the desk. “Maybe the desk would be better.”
She followed him to the desk where he took up the lesson again, this time leaning over by her side as she sat.
“This word is ‘the.’ You see it?”
“No. It looks nothing like ‘the’ to me.”
“What does it look like?”
“Like squiggly lines.”
“But to me it reads ‘the.’ I can assure you this is a t and an h and an e. My eyes see it as plain as day.”
“That’s impossible.” She looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re saying that this mess of lines is English? Then why can’t I see it?”
Thomas straightened. The fact of the matter was that the disease robbed her of the ability to understand pure truth, and the Books of Histories contained only truth. As much as her eyes were gray, her mind was deceived. But if he simply told her that now, she might never agree to see him again.
“I’m not sure you’re ready for that lesson yet. We have to start here, with a simple understanding and trust.”
“Then this is sorcery? You read with magic?”
“No. But it is a power beyond either of us.”
Thomas stood and walked around the desk. “I think that today we should start with a reading. We should familiarize your mind with these words, so that when I am ready to unravel them, you are familiar with the way they read.”
“You will read to me?”
“If you would like me to.”
“Yes.” She stood eagerly. “If I have you to read them to me, why should I read them?”
“Because you won’t have me forever. But tomorrow we’ll start the lesson in earnest. Now if you could help me find this one Book I was looking for.”
“No, please, this one.” She lifted the black Book they’d just been reading.
“I was thinking of another.”
“Which?”
“I don’t know where it is.”
“Then read this one. Please.”
He reluctantly took the Book and sat behind the desk.
She walked while he read from the desk. He was an excellent reader, really. His tone was gentle and full of intonation, yet strong when the story called for it.
Chelise looked at the towering bookshelves and lost herself in the tale he was reading. Then another, and another.
“Should I stop?”
“No. Please. Can you read more?”
“Yes.”
And he read.
His voice soon sounded nearly magical. He was the kind she could trust, she decided. A good man who was unfortunately an albino.
How many times had she wanted to read what she was now hearing? It was a special day. She leaned against a bookcase and set her head back. The sun was straight overhead. Midday. If these words were steps, she was sure she could climb all the way to heaven.
She chuckled and sat down on the floor. The reading paused momentarily then started again. Read on, my servant. Read on.
He read on.
How could simple words carry such weight? It was as if they were working their magic at this very moment. Reaching into her mind and sending her on a journey that few had ever taken. To lands faraway, full of mystery. To lakes and clouds, swimming, diving, flying.
She lay down on a window seat and rolled to one side, lost in other worlds. It didn’t seem to matter which story he was telling; they were all powerful.
The one he was reading now was about a betrayal. Tears flooded her eyes and her heart beat heavily, but she knew it would be all right, because she knew that in the end the kind of power that was in these Books would never let her down.
Still, the story he was reading was dreadful. A prince had lost his only love and searched the kingdom only to find that she been forced to marry a cruel man.
She faced the ceiling and began to sob. The reader stalled, and when he restarted, she realized that he was crying too. Her new servant was weeping as he read.
Or was she only hearing that in her mind?
The story changed. The bride found a way to escape the cruel beast with the help of her prince.
Chelise began to laugh. She drew her legs up and spread her arms and laughed at the ceiling.
It was only after some time that she realized hers was the only voice in the room. She stopped and sat up, disoriented. What was happening? Thomas sat at the desk staring at her. Tears stained his cheeks.
And she was on the floor.
She scrambled to her feet and brushed the dust from her robe. “What’s going on?” she asked. “I . . . what happened?”
“I can’t see the page,” he said.
They’d both been crying. She hadn’t imagined it after all. She glanced at the door—still shut. What if someone had come in while she was in this awful state? She would never be able to explain. She wasn’t even sure what had happened herself.
Chelise faced him. “The story did that?”
“It seems the power of truth is quite shocking to your mind.” He seemed as surprised as she.
“My mind. Not yours?”
“I’ve been shocked plenty of times. Try drowning and you’ll know what shocking is.”
She straightened her sleeves, suddenly embarrassed. But the power! The joy, the mystery. She couldn’t help but grin. Could she tell anyone about this? No. It could be very dangerous.
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “That will have to be all for now.”
He stood. “We’ll meet tomorrow?”
Honestly, she didn’t know how to proceed. It was a frightening experience. Intoxicating. “We’ll see. I think so, if I can find the time.”
“Maybe we could read again tonight,” he said, rounding the desk.
“No, that would never do. You’re my servant, not my librarian.”
“Then could you give me a torch for my cell? There’s no light.”
“No light? I insisted you have light.”
Woref.
“And they’re making me drink the rhambutan juice on threat of my friends’ lives. If I drink the juice, I can’t dream, and I must dream.”
“Now you’re going too far. I’ll get you light and good food, but this dream business isn’t my concern.”
She walked for the door, half of her mind still trapped in the heavens.
“And my friends, they will live?”
She turned at the door. “I’m sure that can be arranged. Yes, of course. Anything else? The keys to your cell perhaps?”
He smiled.
18
Thomas wasn’t sure what had happened to him in the library that first day with Chelise, but he found that, try as he did, he couldn’t remove her from his mind.
Her heart had been opened to a sliver of the tr
uth; he knew that much. She’d heard the story from history—the unadulterated truth—and she’d become intoxicated by it. Another person might have heard the same thing and listened with vague interest. This much he understood. What was much less in focus was his own reaction to her.
In some strange way, his own eyes had been opened to her. She had heard the truth, perhaps for the first time, but he had seen a truth he’d never seen before. The truth was Chelise. As Elyon saw her.
He spent only an hour with her the next morning, and she seemed guarded. Afraid, even. She walked as he read again, but this time she stopped every few minutes to ask him what the story was about. What time period it had been written in. Who wrote it.
He finally closed the Book and crossed the room to where she’d pulled out a second volume.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’re distracted.”
She closed the Book. “Woref is ranting and raving like a lunatic. He’s turning the city inside out looking for the blank Books. It’s an inquisition.”
Thomas was quite sure they wouldn’t find them, but he didn’t say so.
“That’s not what I mean. What did I read yesterday?” he asked.
“A story.”
“What story? Tell me the story I was reading when you cried.”
Her eyes looked away, distant.
“It was too much for you?”
“You were reading a story about a princess who was taken captive by an evil man.”
The story he’d read had been a simple accounting of history, hardly the drama she remembered. Yet she’d heard this in it?
Her eyes misted and she bit her lower lip. He found himself wanting to comfort her. She stood in the sunlight from the window above them, face white with morst, eyes gray and dead. A revolting image once. But now . . .
“That was the truth behind the words I read,” he said. “Not what I read. You opened your mind to the truth.”
“Then you shouldn’t read the Books to me anymore.”
“Why not? It’s what you’ve always searched for.”
“Not your truth! I’ve never searched for the ways of an albino! Do you know who I am?”
“You’re Chelise, the daughter of Qurong. And who am I?”
“You’re my servant. A slave. An albino!”
“And do you think there is any truth in this albino?”
She refused to look at him. They stood in an awkward silence. She finally pushed the Book into his hands and walked toward the door. “There is a tour of the city planned for this afternoon. Qurong wants to show the people his prisoners. You will ride in chains behind us. They will mock you. That is my truth.”
Chelise left him without a backward glance.
As promised, Qurong dragged his prisoners through the city that afternoon. The royal family rode three abreast on black steeds, followed by Woref and Ciphus. Then Thomas, on foot and chained—each arm to a Scab warrior on each side. William, Suzan, Cain, and Stephen followed behind with their own guard. An army of a thousand warriors in full battle dress, armed with sickles, brought up the rear.
The horns announced their coming and the streets were lined with hundreds of thousands of disease-ridden Scabs.
Thomas saw the true squalor of the Horde on every side. A baby crawling on the muddy earth between the mother’s feet, screaming to be heard above the din of insults that had become a steady roar. Thomas was certain the children cried as much from the pain of the disease as from any other discomfort.
The guards parted occasionally to allow youth to hurl spoiled fruit at them. What little grass had grown on the yard along the parade route was quickly trampled into mud. Several huts collapsed under the weight of spectators.
There seemed to be a particular infection spreading among a sizable portion of the population. Red sores on their necks, raw and bleeding. Thomas plodded on, afraid to look at them, much less care for them.
The parade lasted about an hour, and not once did Chelise turn a kind eye to him or show any hint of misgiving. She rode erect, with no emotion at all. She was right: this was her truth.
He spent the night in his cell, too nauseated to eat. But he still couldn’t wash her image from his mind. He begged Elyon for her understanding, her heart, her mind, her soul. He finally cried himself to sleep.
He did not dream.
Chelise rode to the royal garden the next morning, as soon as she felt she could get away without the prying eyes of the court on her. She was flirting with a dangerous game. Even the smallest kindness shown to Thomas could drive a wedge between her and Qurong. Her father loved her; she was sure of that. But his love was conditioned by his people’s ways. Hundreds of thousands of men had died in battle trying to defeat Thomas of Hunter. Aiding him in any way would be seen as treason. Qurong could never accept treason, especially not in his own court.
And Woref . . . She shuddered to think what Woref would do if he even suspected the small kindness she harbored for Thomas of Hunter.
She’d settled another matter last night with her maidservant, Elison.
“Why are you so upset over this, Chelise?” Elison had asked. “I would think parading your new slave on a chain would suit you. Thomas of Hunter, of all men! Qurong is calling him his slave, but the word on the street is that it was your idea.”
“How did that get out? Do the walls have ears here?”
“I think Ciphus said something. The point is, the people love you for it. The princess towing about the mighty warrior in chains.”
“No man should be insulted in that way. Especially a great warrior. The people are like ravenous dogs! Did you see the look in their eyes?”
“Please, my lady,” Elison said. “Don’t misunderstand the situation here. Thomas of Hunter is the man responsible for widowing one out of every ten women in this city.”
“He’s great, but not that great.”
“The Forest Guard then. Under his command.”
“The Forest Guard no longer exists. They don’t even carry swords—what kind of enemy is that?”
Elison looked at her, dumb.
“Don’t play ignorant with me, Elison. If I can’t trust you, then who can I trust?”
“Of course.”
She turned to her servant, took her hand, and led her to the window seat. “Tell me that you would rather die than betray me. Swear it to me.”
“But, my lady, you know my loyalty.”
“Then swear it!”
“I swear it! What is this talk of betrayal?”
“I sympathize with him, Elison. Some people might consider that treason.”
“I don’t understand. If you were to say something more scandalous, some service you required of him as your slave, I might understand that. But sympathy? He’s an albino.”
“And he has more knowledge than Ciphus and Qurong put together!” Chelise said. Elison’s eyes widened. “You see why I insisted you swear? To kill Thomas of Hunter would be to take the greatest mind. He may be the only one who can read the Books of Histories.”
Her servant looked at her with dawning. “You . . . you like him.”
“Maybe I do. But he’s an albino, and I find albinos repulsive.” She looked out the window at the rising moon. “Strange that we call them albinos when we are whiter than they are. We even cover our skin to make it smooth like theirs.”
Elison stood in shock.
“Sit.”
She sat.
“You’re forgetting yourself. I would think you should sympathize with Thomas yourself. You’re both in servitude. He’s a very kind man, Elison. The kindest I’ve met, I would say. I simply sympathize with Thomas the way I might sympathize with a condemned lamb. Surely you can find it in yourself to understand that.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I can,” she said, eyes still wide. “Have you . . . touched his skin?”
Chelise laughed. “Now who is scandalous? You’re trying to make me ill? I have no attraction to him as a man, thank Elyon for that,
or I might be in a real bind. Can you imagine Woref ’s reaction?”
“Loving an albino would be treason. Punishable by death,” her maid-servant said.
“Yes, it would.”
She’d risen then, confident in her simple analysis. It was the first time she’d thought about her use of the morst as a way of becoming more albino. Just a coincidence, of course. Fashion was something that changed, and at the moment this new morst that happened to cover their scaly flesh distinguished women of royalty from commoners. In the years to come, it might be a blue paint.
Chelise passed through the royal garden’s main gate and turned to Claudus, the senior guard who’d grown up as the cook’s son. “Good morning, Claudus.”
“Morning, my lady. Beautiful morning.”
“Anyone pass this morning?”
“The scribes. No one else.”
“Has my slave bathed as I instructed?”
“Yes, and wasn’t he filthy! We gave him a clean robe as well. He’s waiting inside with the Books.”
“Good. I should have asked that you powder him as well.” She nudged her horse and then thought she’d better clarify her statement. “I can hardly stand being near him.”
“Shall we powder him?”
“No. No, I’m not that weak. Thank you, Claudus.”
“Of course, my lady.”
She headed toward the library, eager to be among the Books again. With Thomas. In all honesty the thought of powdering him felt profane to her. She didn’t want him to be like her. Now there was a scandal.
Chelise tied her horse at the back entrance and slipped into the library, chiding herself for sneaking like a schoolgirl. They all knew she was here, doing precisely what they expected her to do. Qurong had insisted on having the Books read to him after her first lesson, but she’d stalled him. She claimed she wanted to surprise him by reading the Books to him herself. Thomas was her slave—the least they could do was let her spend a few days learning to read before robbing her of her gift.
She also convinced him that the other prisoners might be able to read the Books as well. They should be kept alive for the time.
Chelise unlocked the door, put her hand on the knob, took a deep breath, and stepped into the large storage room.
