Green: The Beginning and the End (21 page)

“You’re getting the virus?”

“Hurry!”

Billy paused. What if the Raison Strain didn’t have the same effects in the other world?

“You have other viruses, right? Ebola?”

She caught his eye and glanced at Qurong. “Please, trust me. I need a moment. Alone.”

Billy understood immediately. She didn’t want Qurong to know what she was up to. Perhaps where on her body she hid the viruses.

He pulled the door to the closet open, grabbed the ladder and a small tool kit. Hurrying to the wall under the return air grate, he shoved the ladder at Qurong. “Keep it quiet.” The main door was sealed tight and would offer a good sound barrier, but there was no telling what other security measures had been put in place.

Qurong tried to unfold the ladder as Billy pulled out a Phillips-head screwdriver. “Here, back off.” Billy grabbed the ladder, set it on the floor in proper position, and hurried to the top. Four screws secured the grate, and they all came out without a hitch. He hung the panel on a hook that protruded from the ladder, then peered into the return duct.

Large enough for both Janae and him, but the Horde oaf would never make it.

“Get down.”

He twisted back and saw that Janae stood beside Qurong, looking up at him.

“Hurry! Get down here.”

Billy dropped down beside them. “We can’t all—”

“Wait with him by the door,” she interrupted, mounting the ladder.

“Me? Wait a minute, I’m coming with you!”

Janae glared back at him. “Shut up, Billy.” Then, noting his shock, “I didn’t mean it like that. But I’m the only one who can do this. I know where I’m going. Two doors down into a large storage room that has survival equipment and fresh lab coats. Flare guns.”

“That’s how you’re going to get the books, with a lab coat and a flare gun?”

“No, that’s how I’m going to walk up to the guards before I disable them and open this door.”

“They’ll kill you!”

“They know me! I’ve been giving them orders for years. Trust me, they won’t shoot, not before sorting through their confusion. By then it’ll be too late for them.”

“You’re going to overpower them with a flare gun?”

Her jaw muscles bunched with impatience; he was struck by her beauty, standing up on the ladder in her short black dress, dark hair twisted around her face, eyes fired with passion.

“This is Bangkok, the home of kickboxing. Little girls like me learn to take care of themselves at an early age. Stay here.”

Then she scurried up the ladder, slipped into the return air duct like a cat, and was gone.

26

Then again, these women were not mere classmates.

For them, his appearance was more staggering. In the past, his reality jumping had occurred in his mind while his body remained, making it no less real to him, but far less real to those who watched him sleep.

The four lost books still sat on the lamp table by the door. The cut on his palm was wrapped.

He wondered briefly if they would return him to the future. But he thought so—they seemed to follow a path consistent with the traveler’s heart.

“So it’s basically true, then,” Kara said. “You’re saying that Earth’s history has essentially replayed itself there and been compressed into twenty-six years?”

“Something like that.”

Monique had fallen silent over the past ten minutes, seated with one leg draped over the other, still dressed in her laboratory smock. She cleared her throat.

“All of our history,” she said.

“So it seems. Not the particulars, of course. But the similarities are inescapable.”

“Think of the implications for our world,” she muttered. “So this battle between good and evil is as real here as there. Religion may be misguided on most fronts, but it’s sniffing around the right notion.”

He nodded. “Exactly.” Funny how he’d once been so confused about the whole purpose of history. His understanding of the coming and passing of life had all been so egocentric. Looking beyond oneself to a greater purpose was always so difficult for the average person who lived and died before that purpose found its full meaning.

Now, having lived through so much in such a short span, the purpose of life seemed obvious to him. It was nearly impossible to understand how someone could not believe.

And yet, here he was, two thousand years in the past, searching for a way for the Circle precisely because the Circle had begun to lose sight of the true way. What was once obvious to them was no longer quite as obvious. Why was it that humans lost sight of truth so quickly?

They were like a married couple who celebrated in passionate bliss through the honeymoon, yet found themselves estranged only a few years later. It was no wonder the Roush questioned Elyon’s wisdom in creating such fickle beings.

This was the essence of the Books of History: human free will. And it always seemed to lead to disaster.

Monique was speaking again. “. . . a real person. Not just an idea.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Elyon. He’s a real person. A real being, not just a symbol for an idea.”

He regarded her, not quite sure why she would ask such a basic question. “You were there, you should know.”

“Trust me, a lot grows hazy in three decades.”

And that was the crux of it, he thought.

Thomas sat down, crossed his legs, and faced them both. He looked out the window behind Monique. It overlooked a jungle, teeming with unseen life, but if he took one step into the brush, that life would become very real.

“So.” Eyes back on Monique. “What hope is there in this world that would change the course of the other world?”

“Maybe that’s not the right question,” Kara said.

“No? Then what?”

“Why is everything always about your world? I realize it’s where your mind’s at, but look at it from my perspective. Until you left us, you were always from this world. Who’s to say what you’re going through isn’t all for us, not for them?”

“Them? You mean Chelise. And Jake and Samuel and all those that I hold dear?”

“And what am I? A figment of your imagination?”

“No.” Dear Elyon, she could be obtuse. He leaned forward. “I’m forever in your debt. But you’ve lived your life here, and I’ve found mine there.”

“Promise me,” she said.

She was demanding to go with him again.

He sat back. “Maybe you’re right. So what do you have in mind? Besides going with me.”

“The present sounds very similar to the future. Yes, I know, the surfaces are very different. There’s no Horde, no Shataiki, no Roush, no Circle . . . at least not by those names. But what we do have is a world in which the faithful have forgotten hope. What if your coming is for them, as a part of our history?”

“I’m not here long enough to give your fools hope.”

They just looked at him.

“Okay, that was harsh, but please, my own people are desperate! I’m here only to find what I came for and return. An hour or two. A day at the most. This isn’t like before. I have to return quickly!”

Kara took a deep breath and eased back in her chair. “Did you know there’s a statue of you on the east side of the White House lawn? White granite. Can you imagine what Washington would think if you walked up that lawn and greeted the president after all these years?”

He stood abruptly. “Out of the question.”

“Maybe,” Monique joined in. “But trust me, the world would come unglued if you walked out of here, Thomas Hunter, returned from the dead. And the world could use a little hope right now.”

“That has nothing to do with me. My son has just joined the Eramites, for the love of Elyon! Let’s stay focused.”

“In giving you shall receive.”

“You’re manipulating the situation.”

“Are we?” Kara said. “Think about it, Thomas. There’s a link between the present and the future, and it isn’t just you. It’s as real for us as for you. Maybe if you find the answer here, you’ll find it for your world.”

He had no desire to take one step outside of this room, but maybe there was some truth to what Kara said.

What happened in the histories had always been uniquely tied to what happened in his world. If he could find a way to
alter
this history, he might find the answer for the other.

Then again, that didn’t feel right. He sat again, sweating now. “I don’t like it,” he said.

“Since when did what you like have anything to do with truth?” Monique said. “I haven’t liked
it
since you left.”

Her words felt like a deserved slap.

“And maybe we’re wrong,” Kara offered. “But the way I see it, you’re here, and as long as you’re—”

“I’m not here for long,” he insisted. “Just keep that in mind.”

“Help us, Thomas,” she said. “You changed the world once; do it again.”

“That was a long time ago.”

The door flew wide and a robed servant rushed in.

A robed servant?

It took Thomas only a moment to see that this was Billy, and that Billy held a nine-millimeter sidearm.

Thomas watched, stunned, as Janae, then Qurong, lumbered in behind, scanning the room.

Billy waved the gun at them. “Back! Stay back!”

Janae’s eyes rested on the lost books.

The pieces fell into Thomas’s mind and formed a complete picture. Their hands were already cut and bleeding. They’d come for one reason only: to use the lost books.

“Don’t move!” Janae snapped again, stepping closer to the stack of books. If they touched the books, they would vanish—with the books.

Thomas held up his hand. “Please . . .”

Janae was the first to dive for the books, followed closely in near frenzy by both Billy and Qurong. Her bloody hand slammed onto the top book and the whole table began to topple, sending the lamp crashing to the floor. Thomas was screaming at his legs to move.
Move! Follow them through; move!
But his legs were frozen.

Janae’s hand disappeared, followed by her arm. She was vanishing before their eyes!

But not before Billy and Qurong got their hands on her, clambering to join her in the passage momentarily opened by the books.

It all happened in the space of three—no more than five—beats of Thomas’s heart. Janae, then Billy, then Qurong, were swallowed by thin air.

And then they were gone. The space they had just occupied was empty. And the books . . .

The books had vanished with them.

Leaving Thomas stranded in this world, while Billy, this redheaded version of Ba’al, and Janae, the bloodthirsty vampire, and Qurong, enemy of all albinos, returned to ravage Thomas’s world.

The blood drained from his face. “Elyon help us,” he managed in a thin voice. His whole body shuddered. “Elyon help us all.”

27

“Dried from the sugarcane up north. It makes the tea sweet, much like the blano fruit that the Circle uses.”

Samuel dipped his head, and the servant scooped some of the dried sugarcane into his cup using a wooden spoon.

“Go on, taste it.”

He sipped on the liquid. Found it entirely pleasant, like much of what he’d seen since coming with his men. They’d ridden in silence with the Eramites deep into northeastern canyonlands, through a massive valley spotted with miggdon figs, to a wide desert plateau that boasted a view in all directions. It was no wonder the Horde had never attempted to take their army against the half-breeds. The Eramites held the high ground.

Samuel raised the cup. “Good.”

Eram smiled. “We spare no comforts, boy. None. The Horde may be rich, but we’re no worse off. Certainly better than your poor tribes, eh? We have it all here: the prettiest women, the sweetest teas, the most meat, more space than we can use, and above all, freedom. What else could a man want?”

“That’s how you view the Circle? Poor?”

“Don’t be thick, boy. You’re villains on the run, vagabonds who wear scraps for clothing and dance the night away like fools to cover your pain.”

The man had a point. Everyone knew albinos were poor, but Samuel had never realized the enemy saw it as a defining characteristic.

Samuel looked around the canvas tent, a semipermanent structure built against a mud-and-straw wall, a combination of Horde and Forest Guard construction. Four women, among them Eram’s daughter, leaned against posts or sat on cushions watching them, likely the only albinos who’d ever set foot in the city.

Six warriors stood behind Eram, and another dozen waited outside. Like all Eramites, they were covered in the scabbing disease and wore tunics woven from the same light thread the Horde fashioned from stalks of desert wheat. They ate like the Horde and stank like the Horde.

But that’s where the similarities ended. Rather than dreadlocks, their hair was washed and styled in a variety of fashions, both straight and curled. Strange. And strangely pleasant if you looked long enough, particularly the women.

The armor they wore was straight from the traditions of the Forest Guard, lighter than most Horde leathers to prioritize ease of movement over protection. On the trek through the canyons, Samuel saw that many of the warriors chewed a nut of some kind, then spat red into the sand. Seeing his curiosity, one of the soldiers had offered him one and called it a beetle nut. Eaten with lime, it eased muscle pain. The man said it was used only by warriors and only out of the city. Samuel refused a sample.

Their religion paid no homage to Teeleh and in fact used a kind of Circle emblem taken from the Great Romance. The only real difference between Eramite and albino was the Eramites’ rejection of the drowning, Elyon’s greatest gift. Then again, Samuel sometimes doubted the drowning as well, at least as it pertained to anything more than a hallucinogenic state induced by whatever made the waters red.

“I’m impressed,” he said, taking another sip. “You’ve done well for yourselves out here.”

“We’ve done even better than you can imagine,” Eram said.

“And who were you? Before . . .”

“Before the Horde invaded the forests?” Eram exchanged a look with a gray-haired man who stood by a green tapestry on the far wall. “You don’t recognize any of us, young Samuel? I guess you were only a boy when we had the seven green lakes to wash away this blasted skin disease, weren’t you?”

“So you were part of the Forest Guard.”

“That’s no secret. We lived with your father before he lost his mind to the red waters. Many of our friends gave their lives for him. Not all have abandoned the struggle, but we’ve never had an albino among us. Certainly not one of our former leader’s own children.”

“We’re not here to join you,” Jacob said.

“No? You wouldn’t quite fit in, would you?” Eram turned his eyes to Samuel. “So why are you here?”

Samuel’s mind buzzed with a hundred conflicts, but he set them behind the one overriding belief that had brought him to this place. Peace with the Horde would not come by any naive expression of love. They were an enemy who understood only force.

He set his cup down. “Jacob is right. Albinos can’t join half-breeds. What kind of children would we make? Half-Horde?”

Someone behind him chuckled and Eram’s gray eyes twinkled.

“But we can strike an alliance.”

“An alliance?” Eram smiled at his general. “Just what we’ve been waiting for, eh, Judah? The brilliance we lack found in the minds of four albinos. We should celebrate with a fatted calf.”

“Not four,” Samuel said.

“No? How many?”

Samuel needed a better understanding of Eram’s interest before he divulged that information. Otherwise it could be used against them. “I wouldn’t underestimate the skill of albinos in battle. We might be the poor who dance away our troubles around open fires, but we can also dance circles around the Horde.”

“Yes, I forgot, you don’t have the disease. You’re superhumans in battle.”

More chuckles.

“Something like that.”

The room stilled, and Eram’s smile took on a mischievous quality. For a moment Samuel wondered if the man was mad, as some claimed. But what other kind of person would put a death sentence on his head by openly defying Qurong?

“Show Marsal just how superhuman you are.”

Samuel heard the faint shuffle of boots on dirt behind him before fully realizing what Eram was asking, but his instincts kicked in at the last moment.

He jerked to his left and brought his right elbow up sharply. It connected with an arm, warding off a blow.

In one smooth motion Samuel grabbed the arm, hefted his shoulder into his assailant’s armpit, and pulled down and forward, using the man’s own momentum against him.

The body rolled over Samuel’s shoulder, and he slipped the man’s knife from his belt while the body was above him, then slammed the man onto the table, smashing glass and scattering food.

Samuel leaped to his feet, knife in hand. “Should this superhuman kill your man?”

Before an amused Eram could respond, Samuel flicked the knife to his right. It spun through the air and embedded itself in a post, six inches from the general, who watched with wide gray eyes.

The half-breed named Marsal sprang off the table, ready to go at it again, but Eram held up his hand. “You’ve made your point.”

“I told you we should have slit their throats in the desert,” Marsal spat.

“Why?” Eram countered. “So he couldn’t make you look like a wounded possum? Back off.”

The man turned and walked out of the tent with a grunt.

“Are all albinos so violent?”

Samuel shrugged. “Not all. But not because they aren’t capable. You forget—like you, most of them were once warriors. They haven’t grown soft in the desert. Some would say the fruit we eat makes us even stronger than the Forest Guard once was. Certainly quicker. You be the judge.”

“Sit.”

Samuel glanced behind, then sat.

“So.” The Eramite leader put his elbow on the table, picked up a spilled miggdon fig, and bit into its dry flesh. “I’m listening.”

“The Circle isn’t as united as it once was,” Samuel said. “Many have grown weary of running from an unrelenting enemy while they wait for a day that never comes. There are those ready to join me if I could give them a new hope. It may be the same for you.”

Eram spat out some unwanted skin. “Go on.”

“We may not have the strength to mount our own offensive against the Horde, but can make life difficult for them.”

“Guerrilla warfare,” Eram said. “This is your ingenious thought?”

“Ambushes may not excite half-breeds—you don’t have the skills for it. You may be faster than the Horde, but you don’t have the same advantage that even a few dozen albinos under my command would have. Imagine what I could do with a few hundred. Twenty or thirty well-placed teams to hit them from every side, every other day. Like hornets turning a bull’s skin raw.”

The leader said nothing, and that was enough encouragement for Samuel to lean into his convictions.

“Think about it. The Forest Guard has always assumed a defensive posture against the Horde’s attacks. The Horde has never faced a direct attack. It would force them into a defensive posture that would keep their Throaters home and cripple their efforts to pursue the enemy, both albino and Eramite.”

The tent had gone silent. Eram chewed slowly on his fig.

“What he says has merit,” the general said.

“How many men will follow you?”

“I don’t know. What we don’t get at first will come after word of our success spreads.”

“A new Hunter comes out of the desert,” Eram said. “The new generation with a new answer. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

The leader pushed himself to his feet, wiped his hand on his pants, and walked toward the tent wall behind him. “Let me show you something.”

Samuel followed him as he walked to a window and pulled up the canvas flap. He stepped aside and invited Samuel to take a look.

The tent sat on the edge of a large canyon cut from the plateau, a formation easy to miss from most vantage points. The floor ran at least several miles before opening to the northern desert, and as far as Samuel could see, the valley was covered by tents, not the domestic homes that filled the city. These were the tents the Forest Guard had once used in battle.

This was Eram’s army.

Then Samuel saw movement. A sea of what he’d first thought to be rocks shifted several miles downwind. Horses in formation. More than could be counted.

“Do you think we’ve been sitting on our hands all of these years?” Eram asked.

Samuel was taken off guard by the sheer size of the army.

“How many?” Petrus asked.

“All told, one hundred fifty. Thousand.”

“So many,” Samuel said.

“More than the Forest Guard at its strongest, gathered from all seven forests. They are men, women, anyone of fighting age who is half-breed and possesses the will to retake our homeland.”

Samuel’s pulse pounded. “Why haven’t you?”

“Gone against Qurong’s army? All in good time, my friend. We’re still vastly outnumbered. Qurong’s army is greater than five hundred thousand. We go when there will be no chance of failure.” He drew a breath. “Zero,” he said.

“That time could be sooner than you think,” Samuel said.

“Why wake the sleeping bear before its time?”

“Don’t underestimate what we can do for each other.”

“How so?”

Samuel no longer had anything to lose.

“What if I could bring you elite fighters able to defeat ten Horde with a single blade? I’m talking about a new kind of Forest Guard capable of holding the flank or ravaging an army’s backside as you take it head-on.”

“Yes, so you’ve said—”

“I’m not talking about four. Or forty.”

No response.

“What if I could bring you four hundred?”

This time Eram stared over the massive canyon filled with his army in serene silence. When he spoke there was a new respect in his voice.

“Then you will be a legend among the Eramites.”