Green: The Beginning and the End (22 page)

28

The second thing he noticed in this future was that he, Janae, and Qurong had followed the books into the same location as Janae’s last journey here, the visit she had paid in her dreams. They were in Ba’al’s study, staring in wonder at the ease with which they had crossed realities.

Of course. The books take you where you think you belong. In some strange way, I am Ba’al. Or at least someone who identifies with Ba’al.

But in other ways, he was nothing like Ba’al.

Ba’al’s journal, his blood book, lay on the desk beside him. This one book held the secrets to more than he could recall from his short time in the dark priest’s mind. He picked up the ancient book.

“It worked,” Qurong said, looking at his hands. “We . . . we’re back.”

“You doubted us?” Billy asked.

“I think you meant to leave me,” the leader said, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Where I belong as the ruler of this world,” Qurong replied, turning back.

“Is that what you think? Teeleh is the ruler of this world.”

It struck Billy then that he couldn’t read the man’s mind. Or the mind of Janae, who was staring at the bloodstained altar upon which sat the lost books. Now that he was here in the flesh, his gift no longer worked? But the vials of virus had come through, surely. And the gun?

“I mean no offense,” he said. “But we have to regroup here and think through what just happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Qurong said. He resumed his march for the door. “Nightmares are not for me to understand.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Janae snapped. She’d come to herself, and he saw that she’d had the presence of mind to shove the gun into the pocket of her lab coat. But where were the vials?

“There’s more at stake here than your little kingdom, you fool.”

“Easy, Janae,” Billy breathed. This wasn’t their world, not yet.

She blinked, then visibly relaxed. “All I’m saying is that the world you were just in is real. Everything you heard was true.”

Qurong held his hand on the door latch. “Such as?”

“Such as the fact that you’re surrounded by enemies. The Eramites, the albinos, Ba’al . . .”

“And two albino witches from another world are here to save me, is that it?”

“We have a few tricks up our sleeves, yes,” Billy said. “You’ve already forgotten?”

“The weapons,” Qurong said. “Am I blind, or do I see nothing? Show me.”

Janae glanced at Billy, then pulled out the gun.

“Of course,” Qurong said. “The blunt knife you claim can throw steel. I’m quaking in my boots. This is what I’m supposed to slaughter the Eramites with?”

“No. The virus is for that.”

“And it didn’t come through,” Billy finished.

Janae glanced at him. Surely she would take his cue, knowing that turning anything over to Qurong now only stripped them of their leverage.

“But that means nothing,” Janae said. “The point is, we are of tremendous value to you.”

“How?”

“We can use the books, go back, retrieve whatever we like.”

“I’m not impressed.” Qurong opened the door and left the room, leaving them alone in Ba’al’s study.

Interesting that he left the books behind. Surely the man wasn’t as dense as he appeared. Billy shoved Ba’al’s journal behind his belt, pulled his T-shirt over the cover, and scooped up the four volumes. “Just go easy. We have to figure things out.”

“What we have to do is get out of this place. We don’t belong with these people.”

“And go where?”

Her eyes shifted, and he suspected she knew as well as he did. If so, she wasn’t admitting it. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “But I didn’t come here to hang out with these fools.”

“Did you think they would be gone? That this was Paradise?”

“Why the hostility? The last thing we need now is to start at each other. The fact of the matter is, we have more power than they can possibly imagine. We just have to figure out how to use it.”

“The virus came through,” he guessed.

She felt the side of her bra. “Unless they insist on an intrusive strip search, it’s safe enough. This, on the other hand”—she put the gun back into her coat pocket—“doesn’t scare anyone.”

“It will once they know what it can do.”

“That’s right, Billy. Knowledge.” She stabbed her temple with a pointed finger. “What we
know
is our greatest weapon.”

Fair enough.

“Why did you come here, Janae?”

She stared at him, peeling back the layers. “You can’t read my mind?”

“Not in this place.”

She sighed as if this was to be expected, and headed into the dark hallway Qurong had entered. “For the same reason as you, Billy. I came to find myself.”

Billy followed her, thinking she was right: they didn’t belong here. Not in the temple, not in the city. His destiny rested with another, a Shataiki named Marsuuv, who lived in the Black Forest. The memories he’d taken from Ba’al while in his body were now faint, but three crucial elements drummed through his mind without reprieve:

There was a part of him that wasn’t of the natural world.

His destiny was irrevocably linked to a queen named Marsuuv.

Everything that had happened, from the birth of evil to the Raison Strain to the coming apocalypse, was all his doing, because he’d not only started it all, he was going to finish it all.

Billy, the redhead from Paradise, Colorado, was the first and the last. The beginning and the end.

He was ground zero.

No
, a small voice suggested somewhere in his brain,
Thomas is ground zero. You’re just trying to catch up.

But he knew that wasn’t the truth. At the very least, they were both ground zero. Two sides of humanity. Take your pick.

Billy and Janae walked down a dark hall and peered into a large sanctuary filled with images of the winged serpent, Teeleh. Another altar, like the one in Ba’al’s study, sat at the center of the room, still glistening with blood.

Billy stepped past Janae, overwhelmed by awe and the full impact of the room’s icons: The black candles, spewing smoke into the air. The brass images of Teeleh on the altar. Long velvet curtains on all the walls, emblazoned with the same three claw marks that they all wore on their foreheads, this mark of the beast.

Familiarity hit Billy with the force of a punch to his chest. He’d found his way home.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that Janae’s jaw was parted. She felt it too, didn’t she? She knew more than she was saying. Or at least felt more.

He walked into the room on light feet, as though the stone floor was holy ground easily defiled. They’d crossed the centuries and were standing in the sanctuary of an exotic religion that worshipped the same being who’d made him Billy.

He touched the altar, impressed by the silky surface of the stone—was it granite? Perhaps marble?

Ba’al had been in the presence of Marsuuv, Teeleh’s queen, and the memory played at the edge of Billy’s mind like a pied piper.

“We made it, Billy,” Janae breathed.

“Put the books on the altar,” a voice rasped behind them.

Ba’al.

Billy turned slowly, having no intention of setting the books anywhere. Then he saw Qurong, standing with arms crossed behind Ba’al, who’d evidently been waiting for them, and he knew they had made a terrible mistake.

“Back off,” Janae snapped. She waved the gun at them. “Stay where you are or I swear I’ll blow both of your heads off.”

Ba’al had tasted Billy’s own thoughts, but clearly nothing about guns had surfaced during his short visit. He walked forward, fearlessly. “She said, back off!”

“Then blow my head off!” Ba’al snapped. “Use your toy and kill me if it be Teeleh’s will. But know that I am his servant. Marsuuv is a jealous beast who has no patience for albinos who threaten holy men with toys.”

His argument wasn’t lost on Janae, whose aim faltered.

“Good to see you again, Ba’al,” Billy said. “Or should I call you Billos?”

“Call me what you like. I am who I am.”

“And so are we, two lovers of Teeleh. Show us how to find him and we’ll leave you.”

“These two are liars who could lure a snake into bed and bite its head off,” Qurong said. “Don’t listen to them.”

Ba’al walked around them, smiling. “Snakes, are you?”

“No,” Billy said. “But we belong to one, and his name is Teeleh.”

“So you keep saying. We’ll find out soon enough. In this very room. Set the books on the altar and step away.”

“I can’t do that.”

“No? You, of all people, should know why you must do it. You’ve been inside of my mind and know that I’ve searched for those books for a very long time. Marsuuv compels me to take them to Teeleh. You would stand in the way of his queen?”

A quandary.

“Give me the books and I will let Teeleh have you,” Ba’al said.

“Shoot him, Janae. Kill this weasel now. Put a bullet between his eyes and end his miserable life before . . .”

Click
.

Billy blinked. Was that what it sounded like?

Click, click, click.

“It doesn’t work,” Janae cried. She pulled the trigger again with no better results.

“Why should it work?” Ba’al asked. “If your eyes were opened you might see Shataiki claws at work this very moment, protecting Marsuuv’s lover. Please, throw down this useless tool. Lay the books on the altar. It is my last invitation.”

Billy hesitated only a moment, then set the books down carefully. If Ba’al was telling the truth, he would take them to Teeleh rather than use them. Perhaps it was best for all of them.

“Tell us how to find him.”

“You don’t find Teeleh, he finds you. Go out into the forest and call his name. Trust me, he’s always there, watching.” Ba’al lifted the books and stepped to one side. “Thank you.” He headed for the door that led to his study. “Dispose of them as you like.”

“What of this virus they speak about?” Qurong asked.

“Yes, of course.” Ba’al turned, but his mind was clearly on the books in his hands, Billy thought. “Strip them, search them. I’ll instruct my priests to sacrifice them tonight when the moon wanes.”

“I would be more comfortable if you were to oversee their execution.”

“I won’t be here. My master compels me. It is the end, my lord. The great dragon’s time has come.”

Billy’s breathing had stalled.

“They are crafty,” Qurong said, frowning.

“They’ll be dead tonight, my lord. I swear it.”

29

The robe dropped to the floor, where one of the servants would retrieve and wash it of the stink that came from his nightmare. Thomas’s reputation as a wizard was well-known. Even as the commander of the Forest Guard, he’d possessed an uncanny ability to appear and vanish at will, along with his army on occasion.

But this! Deceiving Qurong with the illusion that he was in another reality was a talent surely no other man had.

“Where’s Cassak? Get him now. In my quarters!”

He didn’t care who heard him, only that he was heard. A shuffling of feet preceded the fleeting image of a servant fleeing the dining room.

“Hello, my love.” He turned to Patricia, who leaned against the hall entryway to his left, still dressed in her night robe. She crossed her arms and ran her eyes down his body. “You’re either feeling frisky this morning or you’ve lost your mind.”

He glanced down at his half-naked body and swore. “I should have killed that albino ten years ago when I had the chance.”

Patricia walked to the table and picked up a piece of yellow nanka. “He’s escaped?”

“Of course not.” But Qurong suspected that Thomas had indeed given him the slip. He’d taken Thomas to his private library, where the witch had somehow put him under with a spell. The next thing he knew, he was popping out of the vision in the Thrall with two equally evil albinos, whom he’d turned over to Ba’al.

“I’ve released him,” Qurong said.

“You’ve released Thomas,” she repeated scornfully. “You have no right to make these kinds of unilateral decisions!”

What on earth was she talking about? How dare she question his authority.

“She’s my daughter too,” Patricia snapped.

“Daughter? I’ve been tricked by a conniving witch and all you can think about is a daughter you haven’t seen for ten years?”

“I waited up for you all night, you thickheaded bull! Who am I, your servant?”

“Silence!”

“Don’t you silence me, Tanis.”

He felt his veins run cold. She knew how he loathed his ancient name.

“I spent the night alone in the darkness, alone because both my husband and my daughter have left me,” she said. “Fine, Qurong. Be the big, strong hero for all your people to see. But don’t toy with my heart.”

“
Now
what have I done?” he demanded. Only a woman could make so much out of so little. Give them a single fact and they’d fashion it into a story before taking a single breath. “I’ve just spent the night in a hellacious trance. My kingdom’s falling down around my ears, and you scold me?”

“Don’t try to distract me with more tales of how close we all are to the day of doom, Husband.” She took a deep breath and gripped both hands tightly, a very bad sign indeed. “I want you to find my daughter,” she said. “I want to speak to Chelise.”

She turned and strode toward the kitchen hallway. “The next person I speak to with Qurong’s blood will be my daughter.” At the door, she shot him a daggered stare. “And don’t bother coming to my bed.” Then she was gone.

Qurong stood rooted in complete befuddlement. Surely she had to know his heart, that he was as bothered by Chelise’s absence as she, that he’d lived in misery since her departure. He tried to inoculate himself with bitterness and denial, and that had helped for a while, but even his obsession with finding and eliminating the Circle was for her sake. He would slaughter this cult of fanatics who’d brainwashed her.

He talked about not having a daughter, but only to protect Patricia and himself. This was required of a strong leader forced to make hard choices in times of war.

“Cassak!” he roared.

“Here, sir.”

Qurong spun to see his general standing in the doorway. How much had he heard? It didn’t matter. Qurong had more pressing matters to tend to. So he told himself, but he’d learned long ago that nothing was as pressing as his wife’s peace of mind. He would rather go to war with Eram than face down Patricia.

He spat to one side and marched into the hall that led to his bedroom. “Follow me.”

He couldn’t think about bringing Chelise here now. He didn’t even know how to find her! And what would he say?
Your father has finally come to his senses—please, let’s be a family again?

She was
albino
, for the love of Teeleh!

Meanwhile, Ba’al was conspiring to overthrow him. Qurong couldn’t be sure of everything about Thomas’s magic, but it had revealed a thing or two, and he wouldn’t ignore the warnings.

“My lord?” Cassak was hurrying to keep pace behind him.

Qurong entered his room and stripped out of his undergarments. He needed to cleanse himself of the albino stench before leaving the palace. This time he would welcome the pain of bathing.

“Sir.”

“Yes, Cassak. Close the door.” Qurong grabbed a fresh tunic from the end of the bed. He pulled it on and faced the general.

“Tell me how much I can trust you.”

Cassak hesitated. “I am your servant, my lord, not Ba’al’s. If you were to order me to kill him, I would.”

So then, Cassak was aware of the threat as well. Was it so obvious?

“I wouldn’t issue such an order, but I accept your loyalty. What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room.”

“Of course not, my lord.”

Qurong walked to the window overlooking the western city. More than two million Horde lived in Qurongi City; of those, over a quarter were males of fighting age, trained in combat as required of all adult men. But no sign of impending war was evident in the sprawling city with its mud huts and smoky chimneys.

His subjects had grown fat off the forests; rich, even. Little did they know the mounting threat from the desert.

“Prepare the army.” He swung around. “Send word that we will march north to the Torun Valley for training exercises.”

“Consider it done. It will be good to take our third division out; they’ve grown fat.”

“Take everyone,” Qurong said. “Including the temple guard.”

Cassak blinked. “I’m not sure I understand. A training mission that size has never been attempted.”

“All of them! North. Within the week.” He glanced at the door, then back. “I want them well fed, hydrated, armed, and ready for a full-scale assault at my command.”

Understanding filtered into Cassak’s eyes. “Then it’s not a training mission.”

“Recall our scouts from the northern desert and debrief them. Send out six teams of Throaters with orders to infiltrate the Eramite city and report back by week’s end.” He paced. “I want to know numbers, strengths, weaknesses. How many children, how many women. Weapons. Morale. Anything that has changed in the last few months.”

“A week isn’t enough time—”

“It’s all we have.”

“You’re saying you plan on invading within the week?”

“I’m saying I want to be ready to crush the infidels within a week. Sooner if I decide.”

Now Cassak was quiet. The order was unprecedented. Not since the invasion of the forests had the Horde fought a full-scale war, and even then they’d never committed all of their assets to one front.

Qurong kept his voice low. “The war drums are beating, Cassak. Samuel, son of Hunter, is uniting Eramite and albino forces with the intention of undercutting us.”

“I didn’t know the albinos had a force.”

“They don’t, but it’s not for lack of strength. Their will is weak, but that could change. I don’t intend to give them that chance.”

Cassak nodded and joined him by the window. “I agree. Eram is a thorn to be rooted out. But one week? What’s the rush?”

“Ba’al’s the rush. He’s on his way to some cursed Black Forest now, and if I’m not mistaken, he has ambitions of his own.”

“So we move before he can get his prickly fingers into our business.”

“And we take his own little army with us.”

His general regarded him with a crooked smile. “I was going to say that the dark priest is a snake, but now I should say that about you.”

“I never claimed to be a serpent. And I don’t think Teeleh would be too upset if Ba’al were his only loss in a war that destroyed the half-breeds and the albinos together.”

“Agreed, sir.”

Qurong nodded. “I also want you to send out three of our best scouts into the west with flags of truce.” He sighed, not eager to pass on the order. “Tell them to find Chelise.”

Cassak stared as if he’d heard wrong. “Impossible. We can’t just
find
the Circle.”

“No, but they can pass word for Chelise to meet her mother in the Torun Valley in four days. She will come.”

“They could ambush the queen, my lord. This isn’t safe!”

“I thought you said they’re a peaceful bunch.” Qurong grabbed a bowl of morst for his skin and headed toward the door. “Just do it. And there’re two albinos in Ba’al’s dungeon, scheduled for execution tonight. See to it that they both stay dead.”

“Sir?”

Qurong turned back. “Dead, Cassak. I want them both dead.”

Their situation was simple and dire. Billy and Janae’s advantage was worthless in the dungeon below the Thrall where they awaited execution at nightfall. The ten cells ran along a tunnel lit only by a single torch near the heavy wooden door to freedom. All were empty except for the one they occupied, but the stench of urine and sweat crowded the small space.

“Still there?” Janae demanded, bunched up in one corner.

Billy pressed his face between two bars and peered down the passage where two priests stood guard. He pulled back and paced the straw floor.

“Well?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Don’t these animals ever use the bathroom?”

They couldn’t tell what time of day it was, but nightfall had to be fast approaching.

Billy bent down and uncovered the items he’d hidden under straw in the corner. A vial of Raison Strain B. A vial of one of the most potent, nonbiogenetically engineered viruses, Asian Ebola, responsible for over a million deaths the decade before a vaccine was developed. A third vial contained Thomas’s blood. Janae had lined her bra with all three in Bangkok.

The last item was Ba’al’s journal. The blood book.

They considered calling the guards over and trying both viruses on them. But Billy and Janae didn’t know what the results would be and would surely tip their hand. Regardless, the guards had refused to come after repeated calls.

Still, within half an hour of exploring their cell, they landed on a simple means of escape. The lock.

A brief examination of the crude metal lock revealed it to be an archaic thing with a rudimentary mechanism. She was convinced that she could pick it using nothing more than the underwire from her bra, which she’d already removed.

They would still have to contend with the two guards at the end of the hall. And once out of the dungeon, they had to escape the Thrall and then the city.

Billy had pored over Ba’al’s writings in the dim light, filling in the numerous blanks between the memories he’d taken from Ba’al earlier. The collection of writings carefully outlined hundreds of details from numerous sources about this world, but the sections that Billy read and reread as the hours passed related to the Thrall and Marsuuv’s Black Forest.

Ba’al had sketched the Thrall’s basic blueprint, which showed a back door just beyond the dungeon’s entry. If they could get past the guards and climb the steps to the atrium unnoticed, he was sure they could escape the Thrall.

And once out of the Thrall, their course was clear.

“That’s it,” Janae snapped, rising. “We have to go now, before they come for us.”

“Slow down, we only get one shot at this! Keep your voice down.”

Her face wrinkled as if she was going to cry. “We have to go, Billy,” she begged. “We’re going to run out of time! Do you hear me? This is going to get us killed!”

She looked to be on the edge of her own sanity. He had no shortage of urgency himself, but Janae looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown.

She scratched at a rash that had sprung up on her right arm. Only then did it occur to him that his lower back had begun to itch as well.
Rash
. Surely, it had to do with lice or something in this cursed place.

He imagined larvae crawling through their skin. Worms. He’d had his fill of them already.

Billy shivered and snatched up the artifacts. “Okay. Try to spring the lock, but keep it quiet.” She was already at the gate, her frantic hands fiddling. “But wait until I say; just try to get the lock open.”

She spun back, and held up the sprung lock. “Simple.”

So fast? She’d obviously messed with locks in her time. He hurried forward and handed her the vials. “Hide these.”

Janae grabbed the small glass containers and stuffed them back into the sides of her bra. Her skin was milky white, and he saw now that the rash wasn’t only on her arm but on her belly and neck.

An unreasonable fear slammed into his mind. Déjà vu. He’d been in this situation before, far below a monastery. The worms there had been much larger, but he was now certain that they’d come from Shataiki. He and Janae should wait—they should proceed with extreme caution, but he wanted nothing more than to be out of this cage, guards or no guards.

Billy brushed past her, pulled open the gate, and slipped into the dark hall. His recklessness was an impulsive, irrational reaction to the fear, and he knew it even as he faced the guards down the tunnel, but by then it was too late.

They stared back at him as if he were a ghost.

“I appeal to the power of Marsuuv, queen of the twelfth forest,” Billy said, marching forward. Never mind that he was a bare-chested albino; he had knowledge that no ordinary man, Horde or albino, should have, and he intended to use it now. Janae was breathing hard behind him.