Lunatic (9 page)

But Xedan looked as if he might.

And if he didn't, he would pretend.

So Darsal told them about the other world.

All of it.

"Another world. Another life. And for me it was much longer than five measly years. A world with more darkness and less hope than I care to remember. Bleak and starless, full of diseased men. It's inside them there. In some ways it makes it worse. You don't know who's diseased and who isn't. You don't know when you've become a Scab."

CASSAK SWUNG OFF HIS HORSE AND LET HIS BOOTS THUMP. Dust from the hot desert floor swirled up and clung to his nose.

He turned to meet his men and the twelve albinos they'd captured. Four youths, the rest adults. Three female. All bound and forced to their knees.

"They were headed for the city," his lieutenant said. "Likely a rescue party for the three the general's got."

Cassak looked the prisoners over. He preferred to take his own tallies, the only reason these twelve required his presence before execution. Their faces were set-even the youngest. Pendants dangled from their throats.

"Which one's the leader?" he asked.

"They're not saying."

Cassak frowned. Not that it would have spared any of them. "Start with the youngest."

His man drew his sword and went to the smallest of the youths. Drew back.

Hooves pounded the desert. Cassak turned. Warryn and two others approached. Cassak turned back to the albinos.

Warryn's boots thumped against the ground. He'd swung down off his horse. "This is the priest's territory."

"My orders come from Marak."

"And Marak no longer has the authority to execute albinos."

"I am on an errand regarding Eram."

"These are not Eram," Warryn reminded, a sneer ever fixed on his face. "My orders are to ensure protocol is followed."

"General's orders," Cassak snapped. He gave the command to execute the albinos. This time the blade fell. Soon the albinos lay dead in a row. Twelve less to worry about.

"Now," Cassak continued, "you may come with me to see to this scouting party of Eram's or you may return, but do not interfere where it is not your concern."

Warryn's eyes narrowed. "Remember your place."

"It is you who forgets."

Cassak remounted and summoned his men. "Hiya!"

DREAMS PLAGUED JOHNIS THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. THE desert summoned him. The woman's eyes wouldn't leave him. Blue, purple, red.

He woke stiff jointed and thirsty. Muddy grass and a dark hollow swallowing him. A soft body shifted against his back. He bolted upright. His foot and lower leg fell into water.

He jumped away from it. A shaft of light broke between mossy spider trees. He sighed. "Silvie ..:' She breathed steadily and deeply at his side.

He could now feel the onset of the disease in his joints and on his skin. If they didn't find water, they could be half-Scab by the end of the day.

Johnis rubbed his face and stared into the crimson water. Bloodred. Not just tinged red, but thick, jewel-colored liquid so still it looked like glass.

johnis .. .

His brow furrowed. The voice was coming from the water.

johnis .. .

Her eyes. The perfect skin, the multicolored gaze that beckoned him from afar ...

Silvie shifted in her sleep, mumbling. She rolled closer to where Johnis had just been lying and seemed to reach for him. Her arm struck air, though, and flopped to the ground.

Silvie turned back on her side, massaging her face and squinting in the pale light.

"Johnis?"

"You still don't hear her, do you?"

The red pool seemed to mock him, a round gaping hole fixed in a menace, a malignant gloating, laughing at his helpless plight.

Red water.

Siren song from the deep.

"No, I don't." Silvie stirred and sat up. "Why does she want you-

"I don't know what she wants."

Impulsively he eased the book out of his waistband and set it to the side.

"Maybe she tainted the water."

"No ...,,

The pull intensified. He could see her reflection again. She invited him in, wanted him to come. She needed him.

His whole body screamed for Elyon's water.

Johnis stepped toward it.

"Something's wrong." Silvie's voice briefly pulled him out of the trance. "It's tainted. The voice proves it."

"She's real," he insisted. His heart raced. "This water was Elyon's, I know."

"You could ..."

It was worth the risk.

`Johnis. "

"The Horde might have done something. Look at it, red as Shataiki eyes. For all you know Teeleh-"

"If it kills me you can still find another lake. Find a lake. Find Darsal. Find Thomas."

"Swim with me, Johnis... "

Water.

She grabbed his pant leg. "I don't want you to-"

"Die? Becoming Horde is worse." His foot reached the edge of the water.

He flinched.

Nothing.

Cold crimson liquid rushed over his toes. His foot slipped off the ledge. Johnis plunged beneath the surface.

His feet couldn't find the bottom. Purplish-red bubbled from the depths.

Light flickered.

Flashed purple.

"Swim to me, Chosen One ... "

Long, satin tendrils of white-blonde hair swirled around him. The woman! Her transparent skin turned the same color as the light reflected in the water. Vibrant eyes glowed up at him.

Then she darted for the bottom. Bubbles surrounded him.

Johnis swam deeper. His lungs burned.

He ignored it. She had to surface sometime. Sometime soon. If he was running out of air, so was she.

Maybe.

"Shataiki swarm this half of the world... the rest banished, banished, banished, banished. Feed and kill, feed and kill ... "

He sucked in water, startled at the image in his head. What was that?

A sharp yelp, like a wounded wolf.

`Aidme..

Johnis's lungs rebelled.

Surface!

He came back up sputtering, both hands on the ledge. Mud stirred into the cold water, washing off his skin and clothes and hair.

A strong hand hauled him over the edge and dumped him. Silvie struck his back to help him choke out the water.

Air. Johnis coughed out the last of it and glanced at his hands.

Still turning Scab.

"Silvie, did you see her?" He got his feet under him, looked around.

In the desert.

In the water.

Hostage to Shataiki.

The woman in the pool ...

"The point of an imaginary friend is that no one else can see her." Silvie folded her arms. "I've half a mind to throw you back in there."

"She had to have come up first, Silvie. Didn't you see her?"

Silvie's icy glare was answer enough.

His throat stung.

Water.

Johnis crouched and took a greedy drink, letting it fill his mouth. A coppery taste flooded against his palate, between his teeth, under his tongue. Coppery and sweet. His cheeks puffed out.

The woman. She'd almost killed him. Or had she saved him?

Then he swallowed. Cool water slid down his throat and into his stomach.

Silvie looked on in silent horror, with wide blue eyes and pallid skin.

Johnis shivered. By Elyon, the water was cold. He shook his head like a dog, slinging droplets all over Silvie.

"Johnis!" She jumped up. A hitch in her hip stopped her movement, though. She rubbed at the joint. "So now what? We sit here and wait to see if it kills you?"

"It won't take more than a few minutes, I should think." He drank again. Despite his teasing, he knew the pool could still be poisoned. Could still kill him. And even if Scabs didn't do it, Shataiki could.

Or time could have simply soured the pool. Natural contamination. Was that even possible?

Anything is possible. Anything.

Johnis scooped more water into his palm and drank. Whatever was done was done. He stripped off his shirt and wrung it out. "We'll know in a few minutes. For now we wait. And decide. Last night we said we'd go after Darsal. Stick with the plan? Or find water and Thomas first?"

"We don't know of a lake close enough." Silvie curled up on herself and continued to gawk at him. "We'd have to strike out across open desert. Maybe try to make it to one of the other forests."

Johnis shook his head. "Thomas wouldn't take to the desert unless he had to. If he's in the desert, the forests fell to the Horde."

Silvie didn't comment.

"And if Darsal's been caught, she's got less of a chance than we do."

"She'd kill us if we didn't go to Thomas. He has to have scouts, spies, something to keep him on top of the Horde. We find them, we find the Horde."

"Agreed." Johnis mulled over what they had overheard the day before. Not much, but enough to chill the bones. "Well, we could always follow the Horde."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard. They're on a search-and-destroy mission. The Guard's gone deep. We want to find Thomas; we could follow the hunters."

"Or wait for Thomas to attack."

"It doesn't sound like he's been doing much of that." He paused. "Of course, there is the woman. She might ..."

"I am not interested in some imaginary woman of yours."

"You weren't interested in Roush, either," Johnis snapped. "But they were there all the same!"

Silvie ground her teeth.

"Shataiki all around, where the eyes cannot tell ... the River, the R i v e r , and a l l between, echoes with t h i n g s unseen ... "

A soft punch. Silvie.

The desert.

All the answers were in the desert.

"What if she needs help? What if she's trying to help us? `Aid me,' she keeps saying. `In the desert.' And Thomas is in the desert."

"We can find Thomas without your beautiful woman."

Beat.

Johnis let his head clear before speaking. He hated yelling at her, but sometimes she just wouldn't listen.

"I'm not sure Thomas wants to be found." He paced. "I think we have to assume we're on our own. Thomas likely thinks we've either defected or died out there anyway by now."

That thought made him stop pacing. And reminded him of the strange woman's pleas to join her in the desert.

"So we really are alone," Silvie spoke slowly.

"You and me. And Darsal."

Wordless, he slipped off, out of the circle of spider trees and over the threshold into the desert.

Male voices caught his attention. He ducked behind some brush and waited to see if they'd heard him. There were three, all Scabs in Scab uniform. Dogs sniffed for Johnis's scent.

"Think it was albinos or Eramites?" one asked.

"Eram isn't that stupid." This was the taller Scab. He seemed older, more experienced. The other two flitted around him like horseflies.

Johnis settled and listened further. Who was Eram?

"Stupid enough to cross Marak," the third said.

"Marak waits when he should swing and swings when he should wait," the first said. "And provokes the priest too often."

"The priest," the second scoffed.

"Where'd the bloody albinos go?" another protested. "They're ghosts, the lot of them."

"They aren't ghosts, and they have nowhere to go. Be patient."

Johnis backed away and snuck over to Silvie.

She was waiting for him, glaring. "So they've finally split forces. Something to remember."

"We need to find Darsal." He borrowed her knife and carved another Book of History into the soft bark of one of the spider trees.

It was a long shot she'd ever find this place, but better than nothing.

"If Darsal managed to escape and make it to the lake, she'll know by now it doesn't work. Hopefully she'll find your mark. And not kill you for carving another book."

"But she'd hide out and circle back. And a Book of History makes sense to us and not to anyone else. She'll get over it." He retrieved his book from the ground. Brushed off the dirt. Tucked it back in his waistband.

"If she's not there?"

"Then we go into the desert. It's our only option. The Horde's too familiar with Natalga Gap. I'd take my chances north if I were him."

"No, we find water," Silvie said. "That is our only option."

Johnis wrung the rest of the water out of his shirt and shook it out. More water slung on Silvie.

She flinched back and made a face. "Just put it on already."

The urge to sling it at her again came over him, but Johnis dismissed it. They didn't have the time for that.

He donned his shirt, chilly against his skin.

The woman's reflection rippled across the surface of the pool.

Silvie scooted forward and knelt, lapping like a dog and scooping with both hands, gorging herself.

The face vanished.

He blinked.

She sat up and wiped her chin. "No more fantasy women."

"I'm telling you, she's real." He dropped beside her. Looked into the pool. Nothing. Just red water.

His mind drifted for a moment, tried to refocus. Another early sign of the disease.

"Seek me in the desert, Chosen One. . . "

"Do we really have time to return to the lake?" Silvie asked, staring at the forest to their right.

Darsal. Darsal was waiting, one way or another.

His mind's eye saw fruit and wine and brilliant eyes like glittering jewels. A warm, exotic presence flooded his soul, spilled into him like waterfalls.

"It's two hours just to Middle," Silvie was saying. "And that's if we run."

Both of them were losing it.

"Are you arguing for or against the desert?" he asked her. "You aren't making sense."

"I'm arguing for finding water and ignoring this newfound fantasy of yours. And for leaving Darsal to find us. She's good at that, you recall."

"That was a little low."

His mind drifted again, from the pool with the woman's face to her haunting, seductive voice. Then caught up to Silvie's insinuation.

Darsal was really good at this game of hide-and-seek. And the betrayal nigh broke her. She had been so hopeless before ...

What if she hadn't really planned on joining back up with them? Jumping out of an attic into a roomful of Horde unarmed was suicidal.