THOMAS JERKED awake. He tumbled out of bed and searched the room. It was still dark outside. Rachelle slept on their bed. Two thoughts drummed through his mind, drowning out the simple reality of this room, this bed, these sheets, this bark floor under his bare feet.
First, the realities he was experiencing were unquestionably linked, perhaps in more ways than he ever could have guessed, and both of those realities were at risk.
Second, he knew what he must do now, immediately and at all costs. He must convince Rachelle to help him find Monique, and then he must find the Books of Histories.
But the image of his wife sleeping unexpectedly dampened his enthusiasm to solicit her help. So sweet and lost in sleep. Her hair fell across her face, and he was tempted to brush it free.
Her arm was smeared with blood. The sheet was red where her arm had rested.
His pulse surged. She was bleeding? Yes, a small cut on her upper arm—he hadn’t noticed it last evening in all the excitement of his return. She hadn’t mentioned it either. But was all this blood from such a small cut?
He glanced at his own forearm and remembered: He’d cut himself in the laboratory of Dr. Myles Bancroft. Yes, of course, he’d been sleeping here when that had happened, and he’d bled here, exactly as he feared he might.
His forearm had rubbed Rachelle’s arm. The blood was half his. Half hers.
The realization only fueled his urgency. If he couldn’t stop the virus, he would undoubtedly die. They might all die!
Then what? He hurried to the window and peered out. The air was quiet—an hour before sunrise. The thought of waking Rachelle to persuade her to forget everything she’d said about his dreams struck him as a futile task. She would be furious with him for dreaming again. And why would she think his cut was anything but an accident?
The wise man, on the other hand, might understand. Jeremiah.
Thomas pulled his tunic on quietly, strapped his boots to his feet, and slipped into the cool morning air.
Ciphus lived in the large house nearest the lake, a privilege he insisted on as keeper of the faith. He wasn’t pleased to be awakened so early, but as soon as he saw that it was Thomas, his mood improved.
“For a religious man, you drink far too much ale,” Thomas said.
The man grunted. “For a warrior, you don’t sleep enough.”
“And now you’re making no sense. Warriors aren’t meant to sleep their lives away. Where can I find Jeremiah of Southern?”
“The old man? In the guesthouse. It’s still night though.”
“Which guesthouse?”
“The one Anastasia oversees, I think.”
Thomas nodded. “Thank you, man. Get back to sleep.”
“Thomas—”
But he departed before the elder could voice any further objections.
It took him ten minutes to locate Jeremiah’s bedroom and wake him. The old man swung his legs to the floor and sat up in the waning moonlight.
“What is it? Who are you?”
“Shh, it’s me, old man. Thomas.”
“Thomas? Thomas of Hunter?”
“Yes. Keep your voice down; I don’t want to wake the others. These houses have thin walls.”
But the old man couldn’t hold back his enthusiasm. He stood and clasped Thomas’s arms. “Here, sit on my bed. I’ll get us a drink.”
“No, no. Sit back down, please. I have an urgent question.”
Thomas eased the old man down and sat next to him.
“How can I host such an honored guest without offering him a drink?”
“You have offered me a drink. But I didn’t come for your hospitality. And I am the one who should honor you.”
“Nonsense—”
“I came about the Books of Histories,” Thomas said.
Silence came over Jeremiah.
“I have heard that you may know some things about the Books of Histories. Where they might be and if they can be read. Do you?”
The old man hesitated. “The Books of Histories?” His voice sounded thin and strained.
“You must tell me what you know.”
“Why do you want to know about the Books?”
“Why shouldn’t I want to know?” Thomas asked.
“I didn’t say you shouldn’t. I only asked why.”
“Because I want to know what happened in the histories.”
“This is a sudden desire? Why not ten years ago?”
“It’s never occurred to me that they could be useful.”
“And did it ever occur to you that they are missing for a reason?”
“Please, Jeremiah.”
The old man hesitated again. “Yes. Well, I’ve never seen them. And I fear they have a power that isn’t meant for any man.”
Thomas clasped Jeremiah’s arm. “Where are they?”
“It is possible they are with the Horde.”
Thomas stood. Of course! Jeremiah had been with the Horde before bathing in the lake.
“You know this with certainty?”
“No. As I said, I’ve never seen them. But I have heard it said that the Books of Histories follow Qurong into battle.”
“Qurong has them? Can . . . can he read them?”
“I don’t think so, no. I’m not sure you could read them.”
“But surely someone can read them. You.”
“Me?” Jeremiah chuckled. “I don’t know. They may not even exist, for all we know. It was all hearsay, you know.”
“But you believe they do,” Thomas said.
The first rays of dawn glinted in Jeremiah’s eyes. “Yes.”
So the old man had known all along that they existed with the Horde, and yet he had never offered this information. Thomas understood: The Books of Histories had long ago been taken from Elyon’s people and committed to an oral history for some reason. If it made good sense so long ago, then surely it made good sense now. Hadn’t Tanis, as Rachelle so aptly pointed out, been led down the wrong path by his fascination with their knowledge? Perhaps Jeremiah was right. The Books of Histories were not meant for man.
Still, Thomas needed them.
“I’m going after them, Jeremiah. Believe me when I say that our very survival may depend on the Books.”
Jeremiah stood shakily. “That would mean going after Qurong!”
“Yes, and Qurong is with the army that we defeated in the Natalga Gap. They’re in the desert west of here, licking their wounds.” Thomas stepped quickly to the window. Daylight had begun to dim the moon.
“You’ve told me where the commander’s tent lies—in the center, always. Isn’t that right?” he asked, turning.
“Yes, where he is surrounded by his army. You’d have to be one of them to get anywhere near—”
The old man’s eyes went wide. He walked forward, face stricken. “Don’t do this! Why? Why would you risk the life of our greatest warrior for a few old books that may not exist?”
“Because if I don’t find them, I may die.” He looked away. “We may all die.”
Rachelle sat at the table as if in a dream.
Knowing that it was in fact a dream.
Knowing just as well that it was no more a dream than the love she had for Thomas. Or didn’t have for Thomas. The thoughts confused her.
The dream was vivid as dreams went. She was working desperately over the table, seeking a solution to a terrible problem, hoping that the solution would present itself at any moment, sure that if it didn’t come, life as she knew it would end. Not just in this small room, mind you, but all over the world.
This was where the generalities ended and the specifics began.
The white table, for example. Smooth. White. Formica.
The box on the table. A computer. Powerful enough to crunch a million bits of information every thousandth of a second.
The mouse at her fingertips, gliding on a black foam pad. The equation on the monitor, the Raison Strain, a mutation of her own creation. The laboratory with its electron microscope and the other instruments to her right. This was all as familiar as her own name.
Monique de Raison.
No. Her real name was Rachelle, and she wasn’t really familiar with anything in this room, least of all the woman who bore the name Monique de Raison.
Or was she?
The monitor went black for a moment. In it she saw Monique’s reflection. Her reflection. Dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, small lips.
It was almost as if she was Monique.
Monique de Raison, world-renowned geneticist, hidden away in a mountain named Cyclops on an Indonesian island by Valborg Svensson, who had released the Raison Strain in twenty-four cities around the world.
Whoever searched for her would probably never find her. Not even Thomas Hunter, the man who’d risked his life twice for her.
Monique had some feelings for Thomas, but not the same as Rachelle had for him.
She stared at the screen and dragged her pointer over the bottom corner of the model. One last time she lifted the sheet of paper covered with a hundred penciled calculations. Yes, this was it. It had to be. She set the page down and withdrew her hand.
Something bit her finger and she jerked her hand back. Paper cut. She ignored it and stared at the screen.
“Please, please,” she whispered. “Please be here.”
She clicked the mouse button. A formula popped into a small box on the monitor.
She let out a sob, a huge sigh of relief, and leaned back into her chair.
Her code was intact. The key was here and, by all appearances, unaffected by the mutation. So then, the virus she engineered to disable these genes might also work!
Another thought tempered her elation. When Svensson had what he wanted, he would kill her. For a brief moment she considered not telling Svensson how close she was. But she couldn’t hold back information that might save countless lives, regardless of who used that information.
Then again, she might not be close at all. He hadn’t told her everything. There was something—
“Mother. Mother, wake up.”
Rachelle bolted up in bed.
“Thomas?”
Her son stood in the doorway. “He’s not here. Did he go out on the patrols?”
Rachelle threw the covering off and stood. “No. No, he should be here.”
“Well, his armor’s gone. And his sword.”
She looked at the rack where his leathers and scabbard usually hung. It stood in the corner, empty like a skeleton. Maybe with all of the people arriving for the Gathering, he’d gone out to check on his patrols.
“I asked in the village,” Samuel said. “No one knows where he is.”
She pulled back and closed the canvas drape that acted as their door. She quickly traded her bed clothes for a soft fitted leather blouse laced with crossing ties in the back. In her closet hung over a dozen colorful dresses and skirts, primarily for the celebrations. She grabbed a tan leather skirt and cinched it tight with rolled rope ties. Six pairs of moccasins, some decorative, some very utilitarian, lay side by side under her dresses. She scooped up the first pair.
All of this she did without thought. Her mind was still in her dream. With each passing moment it seemed to dim, like a distant memory. Even so, parts of this memory screamed through her mind like a flight of startled macaws.
She’d entered Thomas’s dream world.
She’d been there, in a laboratory hidden in a mountain named Cyclops with—or was it as?—Monique, doing and understanding things that she had no knowledge of. And if Monique had found this key of hers, she might be killed before Thomas ever found her.
Her heart pounded. She had to tell Thomas!
Rachelle crossed to the table, snatched up the braided bronze bracelet Thomas had made for her, and slid it up her arm, above the elbow where—
She saw the blood on her arm, a dark red smear that had dried. Her cut? It must have been aggravated and broken open during the night.
The sheets were stained as well.
In her eagerness to find Thomas, she considered ignoring it for the moment. No, she couldn’t walk around with blood on her arm. She ran to the kitchen basin, lowered it under the reed, and released the gravity-drawn water by lifting a small lever that stopped the flow.
“Marie? Samuel?”
No response. They were out of the house.
The water stung her right index finger. She examined it. Another tiny cut.
Paper cut. This was from her dreams! Her mouth suddenly felt desert dry.
A thought crashed into her mind. Exactly how she was connected to Monique she didn’t know, but she was, and this cut proved it. Thomas had been emphatic: If he died in that world, he would also die in this one. Perhaps whatever happened to Monique could very well happen to her! If this Svensson killed her, for example, they both might die.
She had to reach Thomas before he dreamed again so that he could rescue her!
Rachelle ran into the road, looked both ways through several hundred pedestrians who loitered along the wide causeway, and then ran toward the lake. Ciphus would know. If not, then Mikil or William.
“Good morning, Rachelle!”
It was Cassandra, one of the elder’s wives. She wore a wreath of white flowers in her braided hair, and she’d applied the purple juice from mulberries above her eyes. The mood of the annual Gathering was spreading in spite of the unexpected Horde threats.
“Cassandra, have you seen Mikil?”
“She’s on patrol, I think. You don’t know? I thought Thomas went with them?”
Rachelle ran without further salutation. It was unlike Thomas to leave without telling her. Was there trouble?
She raced around the corner of Ciphus’s house and pulled up, panting. The elder was in a huddle with Alexander, two other elders, and an old man she immediately recognized as the one who’d come in from the desert. Jeremiah of Southern. The one who knew about the Books of Histories.
Their conversation stalled.
“He’s gone?” she demanded.
No one responded.
Rachelle leaped to the porch. “Where? He’s on patrol?”
“A patrol,” Ciphus said, shifting. “Yes, it’s a patrol. Yes, he’s gone—”
“Stop being so secretive,” she snapped. “It’s not a patrol or he would have told me.” She looked at Jeremiah. “He’s gone after them. Hasn’t he? You told him where he might find the Books and he’s gone after them. Tell me it isn’t so!”
Jeremiah dipped his head. “Yes. Forgive me. I tried to stop him, but he insisted.”
“Of course he insisted. Thomas always insists. Does that mean you had to tell him?” At the moment she was of a mind to knock these old men’s heads together.
“Where has he gone? I have to tell him something.”
Ciphus shoved his stool back and stood. “Please, Rachelle. Even if we knew where he was, you couldn’t go after him. They left early on fast horses. They’re halfway to the desert by now.”
“Which desert?”
“Well . . . the big desert outside the forest. You cannot follow. I forbid it.”
“You’re in no position to forbid me from finding my husband.”
“You’re a mother with—”
“I have more skill than half of the warriors in our Guard, and you know it. I trained half of them in Marduk! Now you will either tell me where he’s gone or I will track him myself.”
“What is it, child?” Jeremiah asked gently. “What do you have for him?”
She hesitated, wondering how much Thomas had told the man.
“I have information that might save both of our lives,” she said.
Jeremiah glanced at Ciphus, who offered no direction. “He’s gone to the Natalga Gap with two of his lieutenants and seven warriors.”
“And what will he find there?”
“The leader of the Horde, in the desert beyond the Gap. But you mustn’t go, Rachelle. His decision to go after these books may lead to tragedy as it is.”
“Besides,” Alexander said, “we can’t afford to send more of our force on yet another crazed mission.”
“This has to do with these dreams of his?” Ciphus asked.
“They may not be dreams after all,” Rachelle said, and she was surprised to hear the words come from her mouth.
“You as well?”
She ignored the question. “I have information that I believe may save my husband’s life. If any of you would even consider holding me back, then his death will be on your hands.”
Her overstatement held them in silence.
“If you have any other information that would help me, please, now is not the time to be coy.”
“How dare you manipulate us!” Ciphus cried. “If there is any man who can survive this fool’s errand, it is Thomas. But we can’t have his woman chasing him into the desert four days before the Gathering!”
Rachelle stepped off the porch and turned her back on them. Now her determination to track Thomas down was motivated as much by these men’s insults as by her own realization that her husband had been right about his dreams.
“Rachelle.”
She turned and faced Jeremiah, who’d walked to the end of the porch.
“They will be due west of the Gap,” he said. “I beg you, child, don’t go.” He paused, then continued with resignation. “Take extra water. As much as your horse can carry. I know it will slow you down, but the disease will slow you down even more.”
The tremble in the old man’s voice put her on edge.
“He means to become one of them,” Jeremiah said. “He means to enter their camp.”
Rachelle could not dare believe what she had just heard.
And then she knew it was true. It was exactly what Thomas would do if he knew, if he absolutely knew, that both realities were real.
Rachelle sprinted for the stables.
Dear Elyon, give me strength.
They were nine of his best, including William and Mikil. With himself, ten.
The three extra canteens of water they each carried weighed them down more than Thomas would have liked. It was a dangerous game that he was playing, and he couldn’t risk being caught without the cleansing water.
They had ridden hard all day and now entered the same canyon their black powder had blasted thirty-six hours earlier. The stench rose from thousands of dead buried beneath the rubble and strewn on the desert floor.
They rode the Forest Guard’s palest horses. Thomas’s steed snorted and pawed at the sand. He urged the horse on and it moved forward reluctantly.
“Hard to believe that we did all this,” William said.
“Don’t think it’s the end of them,” Mikil said. “There’s no end to them.”
Thomas pulled a scarf over his nose and led the warriors into the rocks. The horses carried them through the canyon, past the burlap-cloaked bodies of their fallen enemy. He’d seen his share of dead, but the magnitude of this slaughter made him nauseated.
It was said that the Horde cared less for the lives of their men than the lives of their horses. Any Scab who defied his leader was summarily punished without trial. They favored the breaking of bones to flogging or other forms of punishment. It wasn’t unusual to find a Scab soldier with numerous bones broken left to die on the hot desert sand without having shed a drop of blood. Public executions involved drowning the offender in pools of gray water, a prospect that instilled more fear in the Scabs than any other threat of death.
The Horde’s terror of water had to be motivated by more than the pain that accompanied cleansing in the lakes, Thomas thought, though he wasn’t sure what.
He waited until they had passed the front lines of the dead before stopping by a group of several prone bodies. He dismounted, stripped the hooded robe off a Scab buzzing with flies, and shook it in the air. He coughed and threw the cloak over the rump of his horse.
“Let’s go, all of you,” he said. “Dress.”
William grunted and dismounted. “I never would have guessed I’d ever stoop so low as to dress in a whore’s clothes.” He dutifully began to strip one of the bodies. The rest found cloaks and donned them, muttering curses, not of objection, but of offense. The stench couldn’t be washed from the burlap.
Thomas retrieved a warrior’s sword and knife. Studded boots. Shin guards. These were new additions, he noted. The hardened, cured leather was uncharacteristic of the Desert Dwellers. The painful condition of their skin tempered their use of armor, but these shin guards had been layered with a soft cloth to minimize the friction.
“They’re learning,” he said. “Their technology isn’t that far behind our own.”
“They don’t have black powder,” Mikil said. “Ask me and I’ll say they’re finished. Give me three months and I’ll have new defenses built around every forest. They don’t stand a chance.”
Thomas pulled the robe he’d liberated over his head and strapped on the foreign dagger.
“Until they do have black powder,” he said, stuffing his own gear behind a boulder. “Have you considered what they could do to the forest if they had explosives? Besides, I’m not sure we have three months. They’re growing brave and they’re fighting with more intelligence. We’re running out of warriors.”
“Then what would you suggest?” Mikil asked. “Treason?”
She was speaking of the incident in the Southern Forest. A runner had arrived just before their departure and reported on the Southern Forest’s victory over the Horde.
Only it wasn’t Jamous who’d driven the Scabs away. He’d lost over half of his men in a hopeless battle in which he was outflanked and surrounded— a rare and deadly position to be caught in.
No, it was Justin, the runner said with a glint in his eye. He’d single-handedly struck terror into the Horde without one swipe of his blade. He’d negotiated a withdrawal with none other than the great general, Martyn himself.
The entire Southern Forest had sung Justin’s praises in the Elyon Valley for three hours. Justin had spoken to them of a new way, and they had listened as if he were a prophet, the runner said. Then Justin had disappeared into the forest with his small band.
“Have I once suggested yielding to the Horde in any way?” Thomas asked. “I’ll die waiting for the prophecy’s fulfillment if I have to. Don’t question my loyalty. One stray warrior is the least of our concerns at the moment. We’ll have time enough for that at the Gathering.”
He’d told her about the challenge and the Council’s request that he defend it, should it come down to a fight.
“You’re right,” she said. “I meant no disrespect.”
Thomas mounted and brought his horse around. “We ride in silence. Pull your hoods over your heads.”
They headed out of the canyon, dressed as a band of Desert Dwellers, following the Horde’s deep tracks.
The sun set slowly behind the cliffs, leaving the group in deep shadows. They soon emerged from the rock formations and headed due west toward a dimming horizon.
Thomas’s explanation of the mission had been simple. He’d learned the Horde had a terrible weakness: They rode into battle with the superstitious belief that their religious relics would give them victory. If a small band of Forest Guard could penetrate the Horde camp and steal the relics, they might deal a terrible blow. He had also learned that at this very moment, Qurong, who’d certainly commanded the army they’d just defeated, carried those relics with him. The relics were the Books of Histories. Who would go with him to deal such a blow to the Horde?
All nine had immediately agreed.
At this very moment, he was lying in a hotel room not ten blocks from the capitol building in Washington, D.C., sleeping. A hundred government agencies were burning the midnight oil, trying to make sense of the threat that had stood the world on its end. Sleep was undoubtedly the furthest thing from their minds. They were busy trying to decide who should know and who should not, which family members they could warn without leaking the word that might send a panic through the nation. They were thinking of ways to isolate and quarantine and survive.
But not Thomas Hunter. He understood one thing very few others could. If there was a solution to Svensson’s threat, it might very well lie in his sleep.
In his dreams.
They first saw the sea of fires four hours later, pinpricks of smoking light from oil torches several miles beyond the dune they had crested. Wood was scarce, but the black liquid that seeped from the sand in distant reserves met their needs as well or better than wood. Thomas had never seen the oil reserves, but the Forest Guard frequently confiscated barrels of the stuff from fallen armies and hauled it off as spoil.
They drew up side by side, ten wide, looking west. For several seconds they sat atop the dune in total silence. Even what was left of the army was daunting.
“You are certain about this, Thomas?” William said.
“No. But I am certain that our options are growing thin.” He sounded far more confident than he felt.
“I should come with you,” Mikil said.
“We stick to the plan,” he said. “William and I go alone.”
They knew the reasons. First there was the matter of their skin. All but Thomas and William had bathed in the lake before leaving. Then there was Mikil: Horde women didn’t normally travel with the armies. Even if her skin turned, entering could be dangerous for her, despite her claim that she could look as much a man in burlap as any of them.
“How is your skin, William?”
His lieutenant pulled up his sleeve. “Itching.”
Thomas dismounted, pulled out a bag of ash, and tossed it to him. “Face, arms, and legs. Don’t be stingy.”
“You’re sure this will fool them?” Mikil asked.
“I mixed the ash with some of the sulfur we used for the black powder. It’s the scent as much as the—”
“Ugh! This is horrid!” William gasped, nose turned from the bag. He coughed. “They’ll smell us coming a mile away!”
“Not if we smell like them. It’s their dogs that worry me the most. And our eyes.”
Mikil stared into his eyes. “They’re paling already. In this light you should be fine. And honestly, in this light with enough of that rotten ash on my skin, I could pass as easily as you.”
Thomas ignored her persistence.
Ten minutes later he and William had powdered their skin gray, checked their gear to be sure none of it would be associated with the Guard, and remounted. The others remained on foot.
“Okay.” Thomas took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Here we go. Look for the fire, Mikil, just as we planned. If you see one of their tents suddenly go up in flames, send the rest in for us on horse, fast and low. Bring our horses. Whatever you do, don’t forget to keep your hoods on. And you might want to throw some ash on your face for good measure.”
“Send the rest? Lead them, you mean.”
“Send them. I need someone to lead the Guard in the event it all goes badly.”
She glared at him and set her jaw. “I think you should reconsider going in.”
“We go with the plan. As always.”
“And as always you refuse any voice of caution. I’m looking at the camp and I’m watching my general about to throw himself into this pack of wolves and I’m starting to wonder why.”
“For the same reason we’ve had all day,” he said. “Jamous nearly lost his life yesterday, and we the day before. The Horde is gaining strength, and unless we do something to cripple them, not only Jamous, but all of us along with our children, will die.”
Mikil crossed her arms and squatted.
“Let’s go,” William said. “I want to get out of there before daylight.”
“The people need you,” Thomas told Mikil softly.
“No, the people need you, Thomas.”
She frowned. It was hopeless.
“Elyon’s strength,” Thomas said.
“Elyon’s strength,” the others muttered. Mikil said nothing. She would snap out of her brooding mood soon enough, but at the moment he let her make her statement.
Thomas clucked his tongue and eased his horse down the slope.
“Perhaps we should stop here for the night,” Suzan said, staring out at the black desert.
“How can we? I didn’t come all this way to wait for him. I could have waited for him at the village.”
Rachelle kicked her horse into a trot. They’d ridden hard most of the day and picked their way through the body-strewn canyon in the last hour. She’d seen her share of battlefields, but this one had been terrifying.
Suzan drew abreast. “We can’t be sure they even went out—there are too many tracks for me to know.”
“I know my husband; he went out. If he left the village without so much as a whisper to me, trust me, he’s on a mission. He won’t stop for darkness. And you’re the best tracker in the Guard, aren’t you? Then track.”
“Even if we do catch them, what advantage is tonight over tomorrow?”
“I told you, I have information that may save his life. He’s going for the Books of Histories because of his dreams, Suzan. He may say it’s to give the Guard an advantage, and I’m not saying it wouldn’t, but there’s more to the story. I have to reach him before he dreams so that he can find me.”
“Find you?”
She shouldn’t have said so much.
“Before he dreams.”
“We’re risking our necks over another dream?”
“His dream of black powder saved us all. You were there.”
Any further explanation would be futile. Thomas himself hadn’t been able to satisfy her, neither fifteen years ago nor last night. She pressed her thumb against the forefinger that had been cut in her own dream. There were two worlds, and each affected the other. With each passing mile, her conviction had grown. With each recollection of Thomas’s dreams fifteen years earlier, her understanding had broadened, though she had no clue how it was happening, much less why.
But she could not ignore the pain in her finger.
Forgive me, Thomas. Forgive me, my love.
“It still makes no sense to me,” Suzan said, searching the ground for tracks.
“And it may never make sense to you. But I’m willing to stake my life on it. I don’t want my husband to die, and unless we reach him, he might.”
“Thomas doesn’t die easily.”
“The virus doesn’t care who dies easily.”
They approached the Horde camp from the northeast, over a small rise that fell into a broad flat valley, with a light breeze in their faces.
Thomas lay on his belly next to William and studied the camp. Tens of thousands of torches on stakes lit the desert night with a surreal orange glow. A giant circular blob of lights spread across the sand. Their tents were square, roughly ten by ten, woven from a coarse thread made from the stalks of desert wheat. The stalks were pounded flat and rolled into long strands that the Horde used for everything from their clothing to bindings.
“There!” William pointed to their right. A huge tent rose above the others south of center. “That’s it.”
“And it’s a good half mile past the perimeter,” Thomas said quietly.
They’d left their horses staked behind them where they would be hidden by the dune. The Guard had never attempted to infiltrate a camp before. Thomas was banking on a minimal perimeter guard as a result. He and William would go on foot and hopefully slip in unnoticed.
“That’s a lot of Horde,” William said.
“A whole lot.”
William eased his sword a few inches out of its scabbard. “You ever swung a Scab sword before?”
“Once or twice. The blades aren’t as sharp as ours.”
“The thought of killing a few with their own weapons is appealing.”
“Put it away. The last thing I want is a fight. Tonight we are thieves.”
His lieutenant shoved the sword home.
“Remember, don’t speak unless directly questioned. No eye contact. Keep your hood as far over your face as possible. Walk with pain.”
“I do have pain,” William said. “The cursed disease is killing me already. You said it won’t affect the mind for a while. How long?”
“If we get out before morning, we’ll be fine.”
“We should have brought the water. Their dogs would never know the difference.”
“We don’t know that. And if we are taken, the water would incriminate us. They can smell it, trust me.”
“You have any idea what the Books look like?” William asked.
“Books. Books are books. Maybe scrolls similar to the ones we use, or the flat kind from long ago. If we find them, we’ll know. Ready?”
“Always.”
They stood.
Deep breath.
“Let’s go.”
Thomas and William walked as naturally as they could, careful to use the slightly slower step that the rot forced upon the Desert Dwellers. A ring of torches planted every fifty paces ran the camp’s circumference.
There was no perimeter guard.
“Stay in the shadows until we enter the main path that leads to the center,” Thomas whispered.
“Right up the middle?”
“We’re Scabs. We would walk right up the middle.”
The stench was nearly unbearable, if anything, stronger than the powder they’d applied. No dogs were barking yet. So far, so good.
Thomas wiped the sweat from his palms, momentarily touched the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist, and walked past the first torch, through a gap between two tents, and into the main camp.
The retarded pace was nearly unbearable. Everything in Thomas urged him to run. He had twice the speed of any of these diseased thugs, and he could probably race straight up the middle, snatch the Books, and fly to the desert before they knew what had happened.
He squashed the impulse. Slow. Slow, Thomas.
“Torvil, you ungracious piece of meat,” a gruff voice said from the tent to his right. He glanced. A Scab stepped past the flap and glared at him. “Your brother is dying in here and you’re looking for women where there are none?”
For a moment Thomas was frozen by indecision. He’d spoken to Scabs before; he’d even spoken at length to their supreme leader’s daughter, Chelise.
“Answer me!” the Scab snorted.
He decided. He walked straight on and turned only partially so as not to expose his entire face.
“You’re as blind as the bats who cursed you. Am I Torvil? And I would be so lucky to find a woman in this stinking place.”
He turned and moved on. The man cursed and stepped back into the tent.
“Easy,” William whispered. “That was too much.”
“It’s how they would speak.”
The Scabs had retired for the night, but hundreds still loitered. Most of the tents had their flaps tied open, baring all to any prying eye. The camp where he’d met Chelise had been strewn with woven rugs dyed in purple and red hues. Not so here. No children, no women that he could see.
They passed a group of four men seated cross-legged around a small, smoky fire burning in a basin of oil-soaked sand. The flames warmed a tin pot full of the white, pasty starch they called sago. Made from the roots of desert wheat. Thomas had tasted the bland starch once and announced to his men that it was like eating dirt without all the flavor.
All four Scabs had their hoods withdrawn. By the light of fire and moon, these did not look like fearless suicidal warriors sworn to slaughter the women and children of the forests. In fact, they looked very much like his own people.
One of them raised light gray eyes to Thomas, who averted his stare.
It took Thomas and William fifteen minutes to reach the camp’s center. Twice they had been noticed; twice they had passed without incident. But Thomas knew that getting into the camp in the dead of night wouldn’t be their challenge. Finding the Books and getting them out would be.
The large central tent was actually a complex of about five tents, each guarded. From what he could determine, they’d come at the complex from the rear.
The canvas glowed a dull orange from the torches ablaze inside. The sheer size of the tents, the soldiers who guarded them, and the use of color collectively boasted of Qurong’s importance. Horde dyes came from brightly colored desert rocks ground into a powder. The dye had been applied to the tent’s canvas in large barbed patterns.
“This way.”
Thomas veered into an open passage behind the complex. He pulled William into the shadows and spoke in a whisper. “What do you think?”
“Swords,” William said.
“No fight!”
“Then make yourself invisible. There are too many guards. Even if we get inside, we’ll meet others there.”
“You’re too quick with the sword. We’ll go in as guards. They wear the light sash around their chests, you saw?”
“You think we can kill two without being seen? Impossible.”
“Not if we take them from the inside.”
William glanced at the tent’s floor seam. “We have no idea what or who’s inside.”
“Then, and only then, we will use our swords.” Thomas whipped out his dagger. “Check the front.”
William stepped to the edge of the tent and peered around. He returned, sword now drawn. “Clear.”
“We do this quickly.”
They understood that surprise and speed would be their only allies if the room was occupied. They dropped to their knees, and Thomas ran the blade quickly along the base of the tent with a long ripping slash that he prayed would go unheard.
He jerked the canvas up and William rolled inside. Thomas dove after him.
They came up in a room lit by a flickering torch flame. Three forms lay to their left, and William leaped for one that was rising. These were clearly the servants’ quarters. But the cry of a servant could kill them as easily as any sword.
William reached the servant before he could turn to see what the disturbance was. He clamped his hand around the Scab’s face and brought the sword up to his neck.
“No!” Thomas whispered. “Alive!”
Keeping hold of the startled servant, William stepped toward the others, smashed the butt of his knife down on the back of the sleeping man’s head, and then repeated the same blow on the third.
The Scab in William’s arms began to struggle.
“She’ll wake the whole tent,” William objected. “I should kill her!”
A woman? Thomas grabbed her hair and brought his own dagger up to her throat. “A sound and you die,” he whispered. “We’re not here to kill, you understand? But we will if we have to.”
Her eyes were like moons, wide and gray with terror.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously.
“Then tell me what I want to know. No one knows that you saw us. I’ll knock you out so that no one can accuse you of betrayal.”
Her face wrinkled with fear.
“You would rather have me kill you? Be sensible and you’ll be fine. A bump on the head is all.”
She didn’t look persuaded, but neither did she make any sound.
“The Books of Histories,” Thomas said. “You know them?”
Thomas felt a moment’s pity for the woman. She was too horrified to think, much less speak. He released her hair.
“Let her go.”
“Sir, I advise against it.”
“You see? He advises against it,” Thomas said to the woman. “That’s because he thinks you’ll scream. But I think better of you. I believe that you’re nothing more than a frightened girl who wants to live. If you scream, we’ll have to kill half the people in this tent, including Qurong himself. Cooperate and we may kill no one.” He pressed the blade against her skin.
“Will you cooperate?”
She nodded.
“Release her.”
“Sir—”
“Do it.”
William slowly let his hand off her mouth. Her lips trembled but she made no sound.
“Good. You’ll find that I’m a man of my word. You may ask Chelise, the daughter of Qurong, about me. She knows me as Roland. Now tell me. Do you know of the Books?”
She nodded.
“And are they in these tents?”
Nothing.
“I swear, woman, if you insist on—”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Yes? Yes, of course he’d come for precisely this, but to hear her say that the Books of Histories, those ancient writings of such mythic power, were here at this very moment . . . It was more than he’d dared truly believe.
“Where?”
“They are sacred! I can’t . . . I would be killed for telling you. The Great One allows no one to see them! Please, please I beg you—”
“Keep your voice down!” he hissed. They were running out of time. At any moment someone would come bursting in.
Thomas lowered his blade. “Fine then. Kill her, William.”
“No, please!” She fell to her knees and gripped his robe. “I’ll tell you. They are in the second tent, in the room behind the Great One’s bedchamber.”
Thomas raised his hand to William. He dropped to one knee and scratched an image of the complex into the sand. “Show me.”
She showed him with a trembling finger.
“Is there any way into this room besides through the bedchamber?”
“No. The walls are strung with a . . . a . . . metal . . .”
“A metal mesh?”
“Yes, yes, a metal mesh.”
“Are there guards in these rooms here?” He pointed to the adjoining rooms.
“I don’t know. I swear, I don’t—”
“Okay. Then lie down and I will spare your life.”
She didn’t move.
“It will be one knock on the head and you’ll have your excuse along with the others. Don’t be irrational!”
She lay in her bed and William hit her.
“Now what?” William asked, standing from the unconscious form.
“The Books are here.”
“I heard. They are also in a virtual vault.”
“I heard.”
Thomas faced the flap leading from the room. Apparently no alarm had been raised.
“As you said, we don’t have all night,” William said.
“Let me think.”
He had to find more information. They now knew that the Books not only existed, but lay less than thirty yards from where he stood. The find gripped him in a way he hadn’t expected. There was no telling how valuable the Books might be. In the other world, certainly, but even here! The Roush had certainly gone out of their way to conceal them. How had Qurong managed to lay his hands on them in the first place?
“Sir—”
Thomas walked to the wall, where several robes hung. He stripped off his own.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m becoming a servant. Their robes aren’t as light as the warriors’.”
William followed suit. They pulled on the new robes and stuffed the old under the servant’s blanket. They would need those again.
“Wait here. I’m going find out more.”
“What? I can’t—”
“Wait here! Do nothing. Stay alive. If I’m not back in half an hour, then find me. If you can’t find me, get back to the camp.”
“Sir—”
“No questions, William.”
He straightened his robe, pulled the hood over his head, and walked from the room.
The tents were really one large tent after all. Nothing less than a portable castle. Purple and red drapes hung on most walls, and dyed carpets ran across the ground. Bronze statues of winged serpents with ruby eyes seemed to occupy every corner. Otherwise, the halls were deserted.
Thomas walked like a Scab in the direction the servant had shown him. The only sign of life came from a steady murmur of discussion that grew as he approached Qurong’s quarters.
Thomas entered the hall leading to the royal chambers and stopped. A single carpet bearing a black image of the serpentine Shataiki bat whom they worshiped filled the wall. To his left, a heavy turquoise curtain separated him from the voices. To his right, another curtain cloaked silence.
Thomas ignored the thumping of his heart and moved to the right. He eased the cloth aside, found the room empty, and slipped in.
A long mat set with bronze goblets and a tall chalice sat in the center of what could only be Qurong’s dining room. What Thomas called furniture was sparse among the Desert Dwellers—they lacked the wood— but their ingenuity was evident. Large stuffed cushions, each emblazoned with the serpentine crest, sat around the mat. At the room’s four corners, flames licked the still air, casting light on no less than twenty swords and sickles and clubs and every conceivable Horde weapon, all of which hung from the far wall.
A large reed barrel stood in the corner to his right. He hurried over and peered in. Stagnant desert water. The water ran near the surface in pockets where the Desert Dwellers grew their wheat and dug their shallow wells. It was no wonder they preferred to drink it mixed with wheat and fermented as wine or beer.
He wasn’t here to drink their putrid water.
Thomas checked the hall and found it clear. He was halfway through the entryway when the drape into the opposite room moved.
He retreated and eased the flap down.
“A drink, general?”
“Why not?”
Thomas ran for the only cover the room offered. The barrel. He slid behind, dropped to his knees, and held his breath.
The flap opened. Whooshed closed.
“A good day, sir. A good day indeed.”
“And it’s only beginning.”
Beer splashed from the chalice into a goblet. Then another. Thomas eased as far into the shadow as he dared without touching the tent wall.
“To my most honored general,” a smooth voice said. No one but Qurong would refer to any general as my general.
“Martyn, general of generals.”
Qurong and Martyn! Bronze struck bronze. They drank.
“To our supreme ruler, who will soon rule over all the forests,” the general said.
The goblets clinked again.
Thomas let the air escape his lungs and breathed carefully. He slipped his hand under his cloak and touched the dagger. Now! He should take them both now; it wouldn’t be an impossible task. In three steps he could reach them and send them both to Hades.
“I tell you, the brilliance of the plan is in its boldness,” Qurong said. “They may suspect, but with our forces at their doorstep, they will be forced to believe. We’ll speak about peace and they will listen because they must. By the time we work the betrayal with him, it will be too late.”
What was this? A thread of sweat leaked down Thomas’s neck. He moved his head for a glimpse of the men. Qurong wore a white robe without a hood. A large bronze pendant of the Shataiki hung from his neck. But it was the man’s head that held Thomas’s attention. Unlike most of the Horde, he wore his hair long, matted and rolled in dreadlocks. And his face looked oddly familiar.
Thomas shook off the feeling.
The general wore a hooded robe with a black sash. His back was turned.
“Here’s to peace then,” Martyn said.
Qurong chuckled. “Yes, of course. Peace.”
They drank again.
Qurong dropped his goblet and let out a satisfied sigh. “It is late and I think the pleasure of my wife beckons me. Round the inner council at daybreak. Not a word to the rest, my friend. Not a word.”
The general dipped his head. “Good evening.”
Qurong turned to go.
Thomas forced his hand to still. A betrayal? He could kill them both now, but doing so might raise the alarm. He would never get to the Books. And Qurong might assume that their plan had been overheard. He and William could just as easily slit the leader’s throat as he slept later.
Qurong drew aside the drape and was gone.
But the general remained. Imagine, taking out Martyn! It was almost worth the risk of discovery.
The general coughed, set his goblet down with care, and turned to leave. It was in his turning that he must have seen something, because he suddenly stopped and looked toward Thomas’s corner.
Silence gripped the room. Thomas closed his hand around the dagger. If killing Martyn ruined their plans, then doing so took priority over the Books. They could always— “Hello?”
Thomas held still.
The general took two steps toward the barrel and stopped.
Now, Thomas! Now!
No, not now. There was still a chance the general would turn away. Taking the man from the side or back would reduce his chances of crying out.
For a long moment, neither moved. The general sighed and turned around.
Thomas rose and hurled the dagger in one smooth motion. If the mighty general even heard the whoosh of the knife, he showed no sign of it. The blade flashed in rotation, once, twice, then buried itself in the base of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord before the man had time to react.
Like a sack of rocks cut loose from the rafters, the man collapsed.
Thomas reached him in three long strides and covered the general’s mouth with his hand. But the man wouldn’t be raising any alarm.
Thomas jerked his knife out and wiped the blood on his robe. A trickle of blood ran down the man’s neck. One, two spots on the floor.
Thomas hauled the man to the barrel, hoisted him up, and eased him into the water. Their mighty general would be discovered drowned in a barrel of water like a common criminal.
Thomas found William where he’d left him, standing in the corner, barely visible from the doorway.
“Well?”
“We have to wait. Their fearless leader is with his wife,” Thomas said.
“You found the bedchamber?”
“I think so. But like I said, he’s busy. We’ll give him some time.”
“We don’t have time! The sun will be rising.”
“We have time. Their mighty general, Martyn, on the other hand, does not have time. If I’m not mistaken, I just killed him.”
Their wait lasted less than thirty minutes. Either Qurong’s allusion to his wife was for the benefit of his general, or he’d forgone pleasure for the sake of sleep; no sound other than a soft steady snore reached Thomas’s ears when he and William listened at what they assumed to be Qurong’s bedchamber.
Thomas pulled back the drape and peered into the room. A single torch lit what looked like a reception room. One guard sat in the corner, head hung between his legs.
Thomas lifted a finger to his lips and pointed at the guard. William nodded.
Thomas tiptoed to a curtain on the opposite end of the room, eyes on the guard. William hurried to the guard. A dull thump and the Scab sagged, unconscious. With any luck, the guard would never confess to being overpowered by intruders. He was a guard after all, not a servant, and guards who let thieves sneak up on their Great One surely deserved to be drowned in a barrel.
Thomas peeled back the curtain. The bedchamber. Complete with one fearless leader spread out, facedown, snoring on a thick bed of pillows. His wife lay curled next to him.
They entered the bedchamber, closed the flap, and let their eyes adjust. A dull glow from both the adjacent hall and the reception room behind them reached past the thin walls.
If the servant girl hadn’t misled them, Qurong kept the Books of Histories in the chamber behind his bed. Thomas saw the drape. Even in the dim light Thomas could see the cords of metal woven into the walls all around the bedroom. Qurong clearly had gone to great lengths to keep anyone from slicing their way in.
Thomas eased across the room, dagger drawn. He resisted a terrible impulse to slit the leader’s throat where he lay next to his wife. First the Books. If there were no Books, he might need Qurong to lead him to them. If they found the Books, he would kill the leader on the way out.
He reached an unsteady hand out and pulled the drape aside.
Open.
Thomas slipped in, followed by William.
The room was small, dim. Musty. Tall bronze candlesticks stood on the floor in a semicircle, unlit. Above them on the wall, a large, forged serpentine bat. And beneath the bat, surrounded by the candlesticks, two trunks.
Thomas’s heart could hardly beat any harder, but somehow it managed exactly that. The trunks were the kind the Horde commonly used to carry valuables—tightly thatched reed, hardened with mortar. But these trunks were banded by bronze straps. And the lids were each stamped with the Shataiki crest.
If the Books were in these two trunks, the Desert Dwellers had embraced them as part of their own evolving religion. The Books had come from Elyon long before the Shataiki had been released to destroy the land. And yet Qurong was blending these two icons, which stood in unequivocal contrast with each other. It was like putting Teeleh next to a gift from Elyon and saying that they were the same.
It was the deception of Teeleh himself, Thomas thought. Teeleh had always wanted to be Elyon, and now he would make sure that in the minds of these Scabs, he was. He would claim history. History was his. He was the Creator.
Blasphemy.
Thomas knelt on one knee, put his fingers under the lid’s lip, and pulled up. It refused to budge.
William was already running his thumb along the lip. “Here,” he whispered. Leather ties bound rings on both the lid and the trunk.
He quickly sawed at the leather. It parted with a soft snap. They glanced at each other, held stares for a moment. Still nothing but soft snoring from the leader’s chamber.
They pulled up on the lid together. It parted from the trunk with a soft scrape.
The problem with being caught in this room was that there was only one way out. There would be no quick escape through a cut in the wall. In essence they were in their own small prison.
They tilted the lid toward the rear together, and as soon as the leading edge cleared the trunk, Thomas knew they had struck gold.
Books.
He lifted quickly. Too quickly. The lid slipped from Thomas’s fingers and thumped to the floor. It struck one of the candlesticks, which teetered and started to fall.
Thomas dove for the bronze pole. Caught it. They froze. The snores continued. They set the lid down, sweating profusely now.
The Books of Histories were leather bound. Very, very old. They were smaller than he’d imagined, roughly an inch thick and maybe nine inches long. He estimated there were fifty in this trunk alone.
He lowered his hand and smudged the thin layer of dust that covered one of the Books. Clearly they hadn’t been read in a long time. No surprise there; he wondered if any of the Horde could even read. Even among the Forest People, only a few still read. The oral traditions sufficed for the most part.
The book came up heavy for its size. Its title was embossed in corroded foil of some kind: The Stories of History. He opened the cover. An intricate cursive script crossed the page. And the next. The same writing from his dreams. English.
Plain English. Yet the daughter of Qurong had said the Books were indecipherable. So the Horde couldn’t read then. Unless there was something unique about these books.
He set the book down and lifted another. Same title. Down in the trunk all the other Books he could see bore the same inscription, although some had subtitles as well. He lay the book he held on the floor.
“It’s them.” William barely whispered.
Thomas nodded. It was most definitely them, and there were many. Too many for Thomas and William to take.
He motioned to the other trunk. They cut the leather thong and pried its lid clear. It too was full of books. They eased the lid back down.
“We’ll have to come back,” Thomas whispered.
“They’ll know we were here! You killed Martyn.”
Not necessarily. That could be the work of a disgruntled soldier, Thomas thought. On the other hand, they had cut the leather fasteners on the trunks. They would need to be retied.
They could take a few with them, perhaps one that made reference to—
Qurong coughed in the adjoining room.
He froze. There was simply no time to rummage through the trunks now. They would have to come back with more help and haul them off whole.
Sounds of stirring from the bedroom sent Thomas into action. He motioned with his hands and William quickly understood. It took them longer than Thomas hoped working in silence, but finally both lids were secure. He snatched up the single book he’d withdrawn and stood to examine the trunks. Good enough.
They waited for a long stretch of silence, then slipped past Qurong, ignoring the impulse to finish him. Only after he had the Books. He couldn’t risk a full-scale lockdown on the camp due to Qurong’s death. With any luck at all, no one would know the bedchamber had been violated. They stole back to the servant’s quarters, switched back into the cloaks they’d worn, and squeezed through the cut in the canvas wall.
“Remember, walk slowly,” Thomas said.
“I’m not sure I could walk fast. My skin is killing me.”
The Horde slumbered. If anyone even saw the two on their midnight walk through the middle of camp, they didn’t show themselves. Twenty minutes later Thomas and William left the tents behind them and hurried out into the dark desert.
“Then we go now!” Mikil said. “We have an hour before the sun will rise. And if they’re sleeping, what does it matter if our skin has or hasn’t changed? I say we go in and kill the lot of them!”
“Let me wash first,” William said, standing. “I’d rather take a sword across my belly than put up with this cursed disease.”
Thomas looked at his lieutenant. Neither of them had washed yet—the possibility of returning before the sun rose had delayed their decision.
“Wash,” he said.
“Thank you.”
William marched to his horse, stripped off his garments, hurled them to one side with a muttered curse, and began to splash water on his chest. He winced as the water touched his skin—after only two days the disease wasn’t advanced enough for water to cause undue pain, but he clearly felt it.
“We’re losing time, Thomas,” Mikil said. “If we’re going to go, we have to go now.”
She was still furious at having been left out. Thomas could see it in her eyes. She still couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just slit Qurong’s throat while he lay sleeping.
He lifted the book they’d retrieved and opened the cover once again. The first page was blank. The second page was blank.
The entire book, blank!
Not a single mark on any of its pages. How could this be? The first book he’d picked up had writing, but this one, the one he hadn’t looked in, was empty.
They had to get the other books. Mikil wanted to kill Qurong, but they couldn’t do that until they knew more. And until they had both trunks.
He slapped the book closed. “It’s too risky. We’ll wait and go in tomorrow night.”
“You can’t last until tomorrow night!” Mikil said. “Another day and you’ll lose your mind to the disease. I don’t like this, not at all.”
“Then I’ll bathe and go in tomorrow with the ash, like you. We can’t rush into this. The opportunity may never come again. How often does Qurong come so close to our forests? And this plan of his troubles me. We have to think! By the accounts from the Southern Forest, Martyn was courting peace. It may be in our best interests to play along with this plan of theirs without letting on that we know.” He stood and walked toward his horse. “There are too many questions. We wait until tomorrow night.”
“What if they move tomorrow? And the Gathering is in three days— we can’t stay out here forever.”
“Then we follow them. The Gathering will wait. Enough!”
A horse snorted in the night. Not one of their horses.
Thomas instinctively dropped and rolled.
“Thomas?”
He pushed himself to one knee. Rachelle?
“Thomas!”
She rode into camp, slipped from her horse, and ran to him.
“Thomas, thank Elyon!”
Rachelle knew it was Thomas, but his condition stopped her halfway across the sand. Even in the dark she could see he was covered by what looked like gray ash, and his eyes were pale, nearly white. She’d seen the rot, of course. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the tribe to gray when they delayed bathing for one reason or another. She’d even felt the onset of the disease a few times herself.
But here in the desert, with the odor of sulfur so strong and his face nearly white, the disease took her by surprise.
“Are . . . are you okay?”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “We had to go in dressed like one of them,” he said. “I haven’t bathed. Why are you here?”
His men and Mikil stood around a small circle of bedrolls on the sand. No fire—a clean camp. Their horses stood in a clump beside Thomas. William was only half dressed and was wiping his body down with water. His skin was a mix of clear pink and pasty white.
“How could you do this without telling me?” she demanded. “You haven’t bathed since leaving? You’ve lost your mind!”
He said nothing.
No matter, he was safe; that’s what she cared about. She ran back to her horse, pulled out a leather bag full of lake water, and threw it to him.
“Wash. Hurry. We have to talk. Alone.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to wash first. I’m not kissing any man who smells like the dead.”
He washed the disease clear, and Suzan told the Guard about their journey. But when Thomas demanded to know why they had taken such a risk, she only glanced at Rachelle.
Thomas jerked a tunic from his saddlebag, snapped it once to clear the dust, pulled it on, and faced the others.
“Excuse us for a moment.”
He took her elbow and led her away. “I’m sorry, my love,” he said in a hushed tone. “Please forgive me, but I had to come and I couldn’t worry you.”
He still smelled. A spit bath would never compare to a swim in the lake. “Running off wouldn’t worry me?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Don’t ever do that again. Ever!” She took a deep breath. “I know why you came. I talked to the old man, Jeremiah. Did you find them?”
“You know I came for the Books?”
“And I’m guessing that you didn’t take the fruit last night as I thought we had agreed you would.”
“You don’t understand; I had to dream.”
Rachelle stopped and glanced back at their small camp. Then she looked into his eyes and swept a strand of hair from his face. “I dreamed last night, Thomas.”
“You always dream.”
“I dreamed of the histories.”
He searched her face urgently. “You’re sure?”
“Sure enough to chase you halfway across the desert.”
“But . . . how is that possible? You’ve never dreamed of the histories! You’re absolutely sure? Because you may have dreamed of something that felt like the histories, or you may have dreamed that you were like me, dreaming about the histories.”
“No. I know it was the histories because I was doing things that I have no business knowing how to do. I was in a place called a laboratory, working on a virus called the Raison Strain.”
She’d rehearsed this a hundred times in the last twelve hours, but telling him now brought a lump to her throat and a tremble to her voice.
“You were a scientist? You were actually there, working on the virus?”
“Not only was I there, but I had a name. I shared the mind of a woman named Monique de Raison. For all I know, I was her.”
His body tensed. “You . . . how’s that possible?”
“Stop asking that. I don’t know how it’s possible! Nothing makes sense to me, any more than it ever made sense to you. But I know without question that I was there. In the histories, I shared the mind of Monique de Raison. Look, I have a cut on my finger that proves it. She . . . I . . . I was handling a piece of white parchment . . . no, it was called paper. The edge of the paper cut my finger.”
She lifted her finger for him, but there wasn’t enough light to see the tiny cut.
“You could have cut yourself here and imagined that you were cutting yourself in a place called a laboratory working on the virus that I’ve spoken of many times.”
“You have to believe me, Thomas! Just like you wanted me to believe you. I was there. I saw the . . . computer. Did you ever talk to me about a device called a computer that computes in a way we can’t even imagine here? No, you didn’t. Or a micro . . .” She couldn’t remember all the names or details; they’d grown fuzzy with each passing hour. “A device that looks into very small things. How could I know that?”
His eyes were wide. He ran his hand through his hair and paced. “This is incredible! You think that you’re actually her? But you look different there than here.”
“I don’t know how it works. I felt like I was her, but also separate. I shared her experiences, her knowledge.”
“I’m Thomas in both realities, but I look the same in both. You don’t look like Monique.”
“You’re exactly the same person?”
“Yes. No, I’m younger there. Only twenty-five I think.”
“The details get fuzzy the longer you’re here,” she said.
He suddenly stopped his pacing, looked directly at her, and kissed her on the mouth. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you.”
She couldn’t help her shallow grin. Here they stood, in the middle of the desert with the Horde not a few miles away, kissing because they had this connection with their dreams.
“Have you dreamed again?” he asked.
Her smile faded. “On my horse, I slept, yes.”
“And?”
“And I dreamed of the Gathering.”
“But not of Monique. Something must have happened for you to dream that one time.” He rubbed his temples. “Something . . . does she know?”
“Monique?”
“When I dream, I’m conscious of myself in the other reality. I know that at this very moment, while I’m awake here, I’m also asleep in a hotel in a place near Washington, D.C. Do you know, is Monique sleeping now?”
Rachelle had no idea. She shrugged. “I don’t think she knows about me, or at least she doesn’t think of me. Or I should say that she didn’t think of me when I was . . . looking through her eyes.”
“Perhaps because she hasn’t dreamed of you. You know she exists, but she doesn’t know you exist!”
He was far more excited about his conclusion than she was. “I don’t find that comforting,” Rachelle said.
“Why not? The point is, you know! You have no idea what this means to me, Rachelle. We’re somehow bound together in both realities. I’m not the only one anymore. Do you know how many times I’ve been tempted to think I’ve lost my mind?”
“So now your lunacy has spread to me. What a delightful prospect. And I don’t think we are bound together in both realities, as you call them. Not the way I understand bonding.” She lowered her voice. “Do you love Monique?”
He blinked. “No. Why?”
“You should!”
Thomas stared at her.
“I mean, if I am Monique, then you have to love me.”
“But we don’t know if you are Monique.”
“No. But at the least, she and I are connected.”
“Yes.”
Rachelle lifted her cut finger. “And what happens to her happens to me.”
“It would seem that way.”
“A man—Swenson?—this man . . . he will kill Monique.”
Thomas didn’t say anything for a moment, as though a real understanding of what she was saying had begun to reach him. Then he gently wrapped his hand around Rachelle’s and lifted her finger to his lips. He kissed her cut. “Dreams can’t kill you, my love.” Thomas’s hand was shaking.
“You don’t need to pretend. You know it better than I do. You told me the same thing yourself fifteen years ago. You said it again last night. If we die in the histories, we may very well die here. I don’t understand it. I’m not sure I want to understand it, but it’s true.”
“I won’t let you die!”
She took a step closer to Thomas so that her body touched his. “Then you must dream, husband. You must stop the virus, because we know from the histories that the virus kills most of them, and I doubt very much that this Swenson has any intention of letting Monique live.”
“Then you think I can change the histories?”
She looked into his eyes. “If you can’t . . . if we can’t, then we both may die. There and here. And if we die here, what will become of the forests? What will become of our children? You must rescue Monique. Because you love me, you must rescue Monique.”
Thomas looked stricken.
“I have to get the rest of the Books of Histories! Now, before the Horde moves.”
“No. You must dream. I know where Monique is being held.”