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  “There will be no more mutations,” Svensson said easily. “But I’m happy to announce the formulation of the first antivirus.” He pulled a small syringe filled with a clear fluid from his blazer. Now his gloating did spread to his mouth. “And I thought it would be appropriate for both of you to see the fruit of your labor.”

  He slapped the crux of his left arm with two fingers, removed the plastic shield from the needle with his teeth, and clenched his fist. He found a blue vein in his arm and pushed the needle into it. Two seconds and the liquid was in his bloodstream. He jerked the syringe out and put it into his jacket pocket.

  “You see. I am now the only person alive who won’t die. That will change shortly, of course, but not before I extract my price. Thank you, both of you, for your service.”

  He waited as if expecting an answer.

  “Carlos.”

  MONIQUE SAW the long stainless-steel needle before Thomas did, and the bottom of her stomach seemed to fall out. Carlos stepped up to Thomas and let the point hover over his shoulder.

  “Penetrating the flesh isn’t so painful,” Svensson said. “But when he tries to push the needle through your bones, it will be.”

  “What are you thinking?” Monique cried.

  All three looked back to where she stood by the sink.

  Svensson was the one who answered. “Loftier thoughts than you, I’m sure. Please try to control yourself.”

  They hadn’t even started on him yet and already her eyes were blurry from tears. She clenched her teeth and tried to still the trembling in her hands.

  “It’s okay, Monique,” Thomas said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve seen how this ends.”

  She doubted that he had. He was only trying to confuse them and ease her mind.

  “Then let’s start with this knowledge of yours,” Svensson said. “How did you find us?”

  “I talked to a large white bat in my dreams. He told me that you were in a mountain named Cyclops.”

  Svensson regarded him with a frown. Glanced at Carlos.

  The man from Cypress pushed the needle into Thomas’s shoulder about a centimeter.

  Thomas closed his eyes. “There are books in my dreams called the Books of Histories. They’ve recorded everything that has happened here. That’s how I first learned about the virus.”

  “History books? I’m sure there are. Then tell me what happens next.”

  Thomas hesitated. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Monique. She could hardly stand to watch him with that needle sticking out of his arm.

  “Over half the world dies from the Raison Strain,” Thomas said. “You get your weapons. The times of the Great Tribulation begin.”

  He kept his eyes on hers. They were speaking to each other in this strange way, she thought. She wouldn’t look at his arm. She would look only into his eyes, to give him strength.

  “Yes, of course, but I was referring to the next few days, not weeks. It doesn’t require any precognition to guess how this will end. I want to know how we will get there. Or more to the point, what the Americans will do in the next few days.”

  He thought about the demand. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do. We know you’ve met with the president. Tell me what his plans are.”

  Monique felt her chest tighten. This wasn’t about his dreams. They wouldn’t stop until they knew what had passed between Thomas and Robert Blair.

  “They didn’t tell me what their plans were.”

  Svensson glanced at Carlos again.

  “You want me to make something up?” Thomas said. “I told you, I don’t know what the United States will do.”

  “And I don’t believe you.”

  Carlos pushed and the needle slid in easily before abruptly stopping at the bone. Thomas closed his eyes, but he couldn’t hide the tremble that overtook his cheeks.

  Carlos leaned on the needle.

  Thomas groaned. His body suddenly relaxed and slumped. He’d passed out! Thank God, he’d passed out.

  Carlos grunted and withdrew the needle.

  “Just a little aggressive, are we?” Svensson said, eying the man.

  “I would have expected more from him,” Carlos said.

  “He still has drugs in his system.”

  Svensson walked over to the computer, ripped the cord from the wall. He picked up Monique’s notes and the pencils she’d used earlier. Satisfied that he’d confiscated her basic tools, he moved toward the door.

  “We’ll have plenty of time later. I want them ready to move by nightfall.”

  16

  A LOUD bang jerked Thomas from sleep. He cried out and was rolling from the bed before he rightly knew where he was.

  The floor greeted him hard, pounding the scream from his lungs.

  “Thomas!”

  He was in his own house. Rachelle had slammed through the swinging door.

  “What is it?” She dropped by his side and helped him to his feet. “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry, I just . . .”

  “What’s this?” She touched his shoulder, where a small trickle of blood ran down his arm. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a scratch. Nothing.” He wiped the blood away, images of this nothing bright in his mind. Carlos had shoved a needle into his arm. The pain had been unbearable. But he had to think it through before telling Rachelle.

  He shook the dream from his head and reacquired his sense of this reality.

  They’d returned from the desert last night, and one of his men had blurted out the details of how Justin had saved their hides in the desert. The news spread throughout the village like fire.

  They were only a day away from the Gathering, and the population had swelled to nearly a hundred thousand, including the large group from the Southern Forest. The air was full of celebration.

  He’d slept late.

  “What time is it?”

  “I’m not sure I believe you. What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you. But you came in here in an awful hurry. What’s going on?”

  She seemed to remember why she’d flown in. “They’re calling for you. In the Valley of Tuhan. We have to hurry.”

  “Who’s calling for me?”

  “The Council. The people. Justin’s coming. There’s been word all morning; he’s coming through the Valley of Tuhan. Half the village is gathered there to receive him already.”

  “To receive him? Whose idea is this? The valley isn’t for magicians and politicians!”

  She rested her finger on his lips. “Yes, I know, the valley is for mighty warriors. And any man who saves the life of my husband must be a mighty warrior.”

  “Then it was your idea?”

  “No. It was rather spontaneous, I think. Dress, dress. We have to go.”

  “Why do the people want me there?”

  “Someone suggested you might want to thank him.”

  Thomas was bent, strapping his boot, and he nearly fell over at the suggestion.

  “Thank him? Who is he, our new king?”

  “To hear the people from the Southern Forest, you might think so. Are you jealous? He’s harmless.”

  “Harmless? He’s the man I may fight at the challenge tomorrow!”

  “Even if there is a fight, you have the option of banishment.”

  “The Council will want his death. This is the price for disregard of Elyon’s love. If he’s found guilty, they’ll want his death.”

  “And banishment is death! A living death.”

  “The Council—”

  “The Council is mad with jealousy!” Rachelle said. “Stop this talk. There will be no fight anyway. The people love him!”

  “I can’t go to the Valley of Tuhan and pay him homage. It would look ridiculous.”

  “To whom? Your Guard? They’re as jealous as the Council. It would look petty if you don’t pay a man who saved your life the appropriate respect.”

  “But the Valley of Tuhan? That’s not for every soldi
er who saves their commander’s life. We’ve only used the valley several times.”

  “Well, it’s being used today, and you will come.”

  He finished dressing and strapped the Book of History to his waist with a broad band of canvas. Rachelle had examined the book upon their return and declared it useless. Yes, he knew, but he wouldn’t be separated from it. It might play a role in his mission yet.

  They left the house. Evidence of the Gathering was everywhere. White tuhan flowers he liked to call lilies covered the streets; lavender puroon garlands hung from every door. People were dressed for the celebration—light-colored tunics accessorized with hair flowers and bronze bracelets and tin headbands. Not a person they passed didn’t acknowledge Thomas with a kind word or a head dipped in respect. Each of their villages had been saved by his Forest Guard numerous times.

  He returned each kind word with another. Although the village was brimming with people, it wasn’t as crowded as he would have expected the day before the annual Gathering. The people had gone to the valley. The Council would be furious.

  They left through the main gate and walked a well-worn path that led directly to the Valley of Tuhan, roughly a mile from the outskirts.

  Rachelle glanced back to make sure they were alone.

  “So, now tell me. What happened?”

  The dream.

  “We found Monique.”

  Her eyes grew round. “I knew it!” She skipped once like a child in her enthusiasm. “It’s all true. I told you to believe me, Thomas. That I was there in that white room.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips, nearly knocking him off the trail.

  “I did believe you,” he said. “As I recall, it was you who didn’t believe me once upon a time.”

  “But that was before. So you rescued me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  He told her. Everything except for the torture.

  “So you not only failed to rescue Monique, but now we’re both in the dungeon,” Rachelle said when he’d finished. She stopped, eyes wide. “This is terrible news. We’re in mortal danger!”

  “We’ve always been in danger.”

  “Not like this.”

  “The virus presents more of a danger than this. At least we know that the antivirus now exists, and I’m in the vicinity of the people who have it. Maybe I can find a way out.”

  “We’re both in the dungeon, for goodness’ sake! We’ll be killed, both of us.”

  He took her hand and they walked on. “That’s not going to happen.” He looked at the forest. The sound of a distant celebration whispered on the wind.

  Thomas sighed. “All around us people are preparing for a celebration and we’re talking about being tortured in a dungeon—”

  “Tortured? What do you mean tortured?”

  “The whole thing. It’s torture. Svensson’s torturing us with this imprisonment of his.”

  She seemed satisfied by his quick recovery.

  “If you and I live in both worlds, isn’t it possible that we all live in both worlds?” she asked.

  “I’ve thought about it. But we may only be sharing the dreams and realities of people in the other world.”

  “Either way, who is Qurong there? And who is Svensson here? If we could find Svensson here and kill him, wouldn’t he die there?”

  “We need Svensson alive. He has the antivirus. These are delicate matters, Rachelle. We can’t just start killing people.”

  He challenged her theory on another front.

  “Besides, if everyone there also lived here, we would have a much larger population.”

  “Then maybe we’re only part of them. There could be other realities.”

  “Even then, why aren’t people just falling over dead here when they die there from an accident or something?”

  “Maybe they aren’t truly connected unless they know. We know because of the dreams, but others don’t. Perhaps the realities can’t be breached without understanding.”

  “Then how did I first breach these realities?”

  She shrugged. “It’s only a theory.”

  Interesting thoughts. And she’d had them on the fly.

  She was grinning. “You see the power of a woman’s thoughts.”

  “I think I’m the only gateway between these realities. Blood, knowledge, and skills are the only things that are transferable, and I’m the only gateway.”

  “Yet I went.”

  The reason why came to Thomas suddenly and clearly. “You were cut with me. And you were bleeding. Both of us were.”

  “And maybe this is all nonsense,” she said.

  “It may be.”

  THE VALLEY of Tuhan had never seen so many people at once, not even after the Winter Campaign, when the nearest forests had come together to honor Thomas.

  They first heard the crowd a hundred yards from the valley, a soft murmur of voices that grew with each step. When Thomas and Rachelle finally rounded the last bend in the forest and faced the broad green valley of grass, the murmur became a steady roar.

  Thomas stopped, speechless. The valley looked like a large oblong bowl that gently sloped to a flat base. White lilylike flowers called tuhans grew along the banks of a small creek that ran the length of the valley, thus its name, the Valley of Tuhan. A wide path had been worn beside the creek.

  But it was the crowd that stopped Thomas. They weren’t cheering. They were waiting on the slopes on either side, talking excitedly, thirty thousand at least, dressed in white tunics with flowers in their hair. So many! He knew Justin’s popularity had never been as great as it was now. His victory at the Southern Forest and the incident yesterday in the desert had catapulted him to the status of hero overnight. The beat had always been there, of course, but now the fickle crowds had taken up their drums and joined the parade, ready to march en masse.

  “Thomas! It’s Thomas of Hunter!” someone cried.

  Thomas dipped his head at the man who spoke, Peter of Southern, one of the elders from the Southern Forest. Peter hurried over. The news that Thomas had arrived spread down the valley; thousands of heads turned; a cry swelled.

  Thomas of Hunter.

  He smiled and lifted a hand to the people while looking for any sign of Ciphus or the Council.

  “You should be at the front, Thomas,” Peter said. “Hurry, he’ll be here soon.”

  “I can see well enough—”

  “No, no, we have a place reserved.” He took Thomas’s arm and pulled him. “Come. Rachelle, come.”

  A chant had started and they called his name as was the custom. “Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter.” Thirty thousand voices strong.

  With their eyes on him and their voices crying his name, he had little choice but to follow Peter of Southern down the slope, where the crowd had parted for him, to the valley floor, where the children had been jumping and dancing only a moment ago. Now they stilled and stared in awe at the great warrior whose name was being chanted.

  Peter led him to the front row.

  “Thank you, Peter.”

  The elder left.

  His son and daughter, Samuel and Marie, worked their way toward him from the left, glowing with pride but trying not to be too obvious about it. He winked at them and smiled.

  The chant hadn’t eased. Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter. He lifted his hand and acknowledged the crowd again. They waited on the slopes, natural bleachers. The seventy-yard swath down the middle of the valley was the parade route, and not a soul ventured out to disturb the grass. This was the custom. The path Justin would ride down split the valley in two, only thirty yards from where they stood.

  A small girl, maybe nine or ten years of age, with a small white lily in her hair, stared at him with huge brown eyes, ten feet away. In her shock at being so close to this legend, she’d forgotten how to chant, Thomas thought. He smiled at her and dipped his head.


  Her round mouth split into a wide smile. One of her teeth was missing, he saw. Maybe she was younger than nine.

  “She’s adorable,” Rachelle said, next to him. She’d seen her staring.

  Still the crowd chanted his name.

  No one gave the signal. No bright light appeared in the sky to signal any change. And yet everything changed in the space of two chants. It was Hunter, Hunt— and then silence.

  The profound, ringing silence seemed louder to Thomas than the roar that preceded it.

  He glanced across the valley and saw that every head had turned to his left. There, where the trees ended and the grass began, stood a white horse. And on the horse sat a man dressed in a white sleeveless tunic.

  Justin of Southern had arrived.

  Two warriors in traditional battle dress were mounted side by side behind him. Justin and his merry men, Thomas thought.

  For a long moment that seemed to stretch beyond itself, Justin sat perfectly still. He wore a wreath of white flowers on his head. Bands made of brass were wrapped around his biceps and forearms, and his boots were bound high, battle style. A knife was strapped to his calf and a black-handled sword hung in a red scabbard behind him. He sat in the saddle with the confidence of a battle-hardened warrior, but he looked more like a prince than a soldier.

  His eyes searched the crowd, lingered on Thomas for a moment, and then moved on. Still not a sound.

  His horse pawed the ground once and stepped into the valley.

  A roar shook the ground, an eruption of raw energy bottled in the throats of thirty thousand people. Fists were thrown to the air and mouths were stretched in passion. Their thunder seemed to fuel itself, and when Thomas was sure it had reached its peak, the roar swelled.

  They were three miles from the village, but there wasn’t a doubt in Thomas’s mind that the shutters of every house there were at this very moment rattling. How many of these people were shouting because the others were shouting? How many were willing to celebrate, regardless of the object of that celebration? Apparently, most.

  He glanced at Rachelle, who beamed and shouted, caught up in the moment. He smiled. Why not? Every warrior deserved honor, and Justin of Southern, though perhaps deserving of other considerations as well, had certainly earned some honor. Let the Council sweat in their robes. Today was Justin’s day.