Green: The Beginning and the End Read online

  Qurong!

  “In,” he cried to Kara. “Dive in after him! I’ll come . . .”

  He veered to the right, following the Roush. Kara hardly needed encouragement. She took her horse over the edge and fell headlong into the red lake with a mighty splash. Elyon’s waters swallowed her.

  Thomas followed the Roush to the west of the pool, tempted to turn back and dive in. But Qurong was there, just ahead, and Chelise had come for Qurong.

  The seven thousand were now plowing into the lake, waves and waves, some of them clinging to their mounts, others diving midair, still others—mostly the young, squealing with laughter—tumbling through the air before splashing beneath the surface.

  They all knew this was it. Elyon called to them from these intoxicating waters.

  Thomas pushed his mount faster, oblivious to the dead underfoot. He rushed forward, aware that he was going in the wrong direction. The waters still called to him from behind.

  But Chelise was ahead.

  A wounded albino who looked like he’d caught the scabbing disease rushed past him, headed for the lake with tears streaming down his face. He stumbled to the edge and threw himself into the water. A half-breed rushed the waters on the opposite shore. Both vanished below the shimmering surface. Neither reemerged. Others left alive by the Shataiki followed.

  Still others fled the lake, clawing back up the valley’s slopes.

  Thomas saw Qurong clearly now. The Horde leader had fallen on his face and was gripping an article of clothing. Behind him on a flat boulder lay the naked body of the dark priest, Ba’al, now headless. To his right, a fallen half-breed, facedown.

  But no sign of Chelise. Or Samuel. None!

  He pulled his horse to a stop, dropped to the ground, and rushed Qurong. “Where is she?”

  The leader didn’t look lucid. He’d been weeping for some time. Thomas grasped his dreadlocks and yanked his head back. “Where is my wife? Tell me!”

  “Gone!” the man cried, shoving the clothing at him. “Vanished!”

  Thomas was about to slap sense into the man in his eagerness to know, when he recognized the bloody tunic beneath the Horde cloak by Qurong’s knees. And the riding pants, still stuffed into the tops of boots.

  Boots . . . These were boots that he himself had made. Chelise’s boots. She’d been here!

  He spun back to the lake, and the meaning of what had happened filled his mind. Chelise had been here, slain in battle. But Elyon had taken her.

  “My son!” he demanded, spinning back to Qurong again. “Where is my son, Samuel? He was with the Eramites.”

  Qurong’s eyes snapped up, and realization spread over his face. He turned to his right and looked at the slain half-breed.

  “There. There is your son, the one who killed my daughter.”

  Thomas stood slowly, fighting to stay steady as he turned to the body lying facedown. He walked forward, gripped the sword still sticking out of the warrior’s chest, and turned the man over.

  Disease covered his skin and his armor was patently Horde, but there was no doubting this man’s face. Samuel. Samuel, who’d turned Scab, lay dead. And his body, unlike Chelise’s body, was still here, trapped in this world.

  Heat spread down Thomas’s face and neck and then flashed down his body, squeezing off his breath. The strength to stand left him and he dropped to his knees.

  How could this be? Chelise hadn’t been able to save him?

  The sky had emptied of Shataiki. Down at the lake, the last of the seven thousand plunged into the depths. The battlefield grew quiet.

  But here, in Thomas’s head, there was a moaning that washed over him like the voices of a thousand dead.

  His heart was breaking and his mind was falling apart, and he no longer cared to live. He covered his face with both hands, lifted his chin, and wailed at the sky.

  “Samuel . . . Samuel. Samuel, my son, my son!”

  He tore at his tunic, ripped it wide open, and cried without reserve. “Elyon, save my son . . .”

  The air was silent.

  The vaguest notion of paradise without Samuel was more than he could bear. This was Teeleh’s doing!

  “Elyon has no ears,” Qurong said to his right.

  “No!” Thomas snarled, twisting around. “You’re wrong.” He shoved his finger at the red pool. “Drown! Drown, you fool. My wife and my son have given their lives; now, drown! Dive into the pool, draw his water into your lungs and drown!”

  Thomas staggered to his feet, face hot, drawing energy from his sorrow. Then he faced the sky and screamed. “Elyon! Elyon, hear me. Save my son!”

  The sky remained silent.

  A new way came to him. He spread his arms and searched the sky. “Let me go back. Let me find my son. I beg you, Elyon. Anything . . . anything! Just let me save my son.”

  Nothing.

  He clenched his eyes and threw both arms wide. “Elyon!” he cried. “Elyon!”

  The words Michal had spoken a week earlier sliced through his mind: Follow your heart, Thomas, because the time has come . . . he will give you what you ask in that hour when all is lost.

  With all of his strength, from the pit of his stomach, he screamed at the sky. “Elyon! Fulfill your promise!”

  QURONG WAS lost in his own black misery, but this simple fact pointed out by Thomas rose like a beacon of light on the dark horizon: Chelise, his own daughter, had given her life for him.

  And she had demanded that he drown.

  Thomas was demanding the same. Drown, drown, you old fool. Drowning was foolishness. But then, he was dead already, surrounded by the dead.

  Drown, Father. Drown, drown!

  Thomas spread his arms wide and screamed at the sky in rage. “Elyon!” And again, with such force Qurong thought the man might damage his lungs. “Fulfill your promise!”

  Then it happened for the second time in the space of ten minutes. One moment Thomas was standing there; the next, nothing but air filled out his clothes. He simply vanished as Chelise had vanished. And now his tunic floated to the ground, empty.

  Qurong stared at the heap of clothing, staggered by the unexplainable. Could it be that this wasn’t Teeleh’s doing? That both Chelise and Thomas knew what he did not? That the drowning was Elyon’s gift to the Horde?

  He turned and faced the red pool, heart and mind heavy with loss. Not a soul stood living. They had all either died, fled, or thrown themselves into the lake. The Shataiki sped south, high in the sky. Toward his city to feed.

  By nightfall, every living soul would be consumed by Shataiki. This was Ba’al’s gift to them. And yet he, Qurong, remained alive. Why?

  He looked at the wound in his arm, where Thomas’s blood had mixed with his own, offering him some protection against the disease and the beasts. And now that man had vanished before his eyes.

  Drown, Qurong. For the sake of Elyon, drown!

  He turned downhill, swallowed the lump in his throat, and walked forward. This is what you were born to do. To drown. To dive into the lake and to laugh with Elyon.

  Desperation crept over him and he lumbered forward, running now. Over fallen bodies.

  Drown, you old fool. Just drown.

  He broke into a sprint, and now he couldn’t get to the water’s edge fast enough. Suddenly nothing else mattered. All was lost.

  But there, just ahead, lay a red lake with a green core, and he couldn’t run fast enough. Qurong started to weep as he ran, blinded by his own tears.

  “I will drown. I will drown,” he mumbled. “I will drown for you, my Maker. I will drown for you, Elyon.”

  And then Qurong, supreme commander of the Horde, dived into the lake. He inhaled the bitter waters of Elyon’s death. He drowned in a pit of sorrow.

  And he found life in a world swimming with color and laughter and more pleasure than his new body could possibly manage.

  THE WORLD around Thomas blinked off, then on, then he was standing on the white sand, facing a bright blue horizon in perfect silen
ce.

  Here? Alone? Like a fist milking his veins, his heart throbbed. Time seemed to have stalled.

  But he knew he couldn’t be alone. The boy . . .

  The boy had to be here.

  He turned ever so slowly. The boy stood twenty feet away, arms crossed, lips flat and gaze steady. Behind him, a green lake reflected the clear sky, like a shiny mirror.

  “You want to save your son?” the boy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You want to save Samuel?”

  His lover’s face filled his mind. “Chelise . . .”

  “Is with me,” the boy said.

  Which could only mean Samuel was not.

  “I . . . I can’t live without him.”

  The boy looked at him for several long seconds, then shifted his eyes to the horizon. “I know how you feel.”

  “I know this is within your power,” Thomas said. “If you would save all of Sodom for ten souls, you would give me the chance to save my one son.”

  “It’s much more dangerous than you realize,” the boy said, looking back.

  “I’ll take that risk. I—”

  “Not you, Thomas. The risk is to the rest. This isn’t just about you and your son. If I send you back you might save your son, but at what cost? The cost of saving even one is beyond you.”

  He hadn’t thought of it in those terms. But he couldn’t back out, not now.

  The boy uncrossed his arms. “Walk with me.”

  Thomas hurried forward on weak legs. He joined the boy, who reached up and took his hand as they walked along the shore of the lake.

  “Every choice you make will have far-reaching consequences,” the boy said. “You will eventually change everything.”

  “Will it be better or worse?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On you.”

  They walked ten paces in silence. The boy’s fingers felt so small in his hand. Thomas looked at the water and for a few moments considered withdrawing his request to join the others. Chelise and Mikil . . . Kara. He could only imagine their pleasure now, dancing and tearing about like children.

  “Okay, Thomas. But I have two conditions.”

  Elyon was agreeing? “Anything.”

  “I will send you back to the place and time of my choosing.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “You will have no memory of anything that’s happened. You’ll have your chance, unlike anyone else in history, but you won’t have the benefit of knowing it’s a second chance. You won’t have any of the knowledge you’ve gained here.” The boy stopped and looked up at him with round green eyes. “Do you understand?”

  Thomas tried. But did it matter? He wouldn’t remember anyway. If Elyon required this, then he would agree, and quickly. “I think so, yes.”

  “You’ll wake in a place called Denver without any memory of this reality. Your dreams will be touched.”

  “Dreams?”

  “They’ll be real. Unfortunately, you won’t know it.”

  “How . . . how does that work?”

  “Better than you might think.” The boy smiled for the first time, though only slightly. Then his face fell flat again.

  “The fate of the world will depend on every choice you make.” He swept his eyes over the horizon. “We’ll remake history together, Thomas. Is that what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  He shifted his gaze back to Thomas. “Good. It’s what I do with every human anyway. Let’s just hope you make the right choices.”

  “What about Chelise?”

  “I thought you wanted to start over?”

  Confusion swarmed his mind. “But . . . what about Chelise?”

  “I thought you wanted to save your son,” the boy said.

  “I do.”

  “By going back.”

  “Yes,” Thomas said. “Unless there’s another way.”

  “Not that I know of. And I know an awful lot.”

  He considered it all and came to his decision quickly. Impulsively.

  “Yes. Send me back. For the sake of my son.”

  The boy stepped to one side and winked. “Then dive, my friend.”

  Thomas faced the glassy pool. “Dive? In here?”

  “Dive deep,” the boy said.

  Thomas took one last breath, nodded at the boy, and dived deep. Very, very deep.

  46

  THE WATER cascaded over Thomas’s head and ran down his face like a warm glove. It was just that, water, but it washed away all his concern and anxiety and set his mind free for a few minutes. He’d been here awhile, lost in a distant world that hung on the edge of his mind without any detail or meaning. Just escape. Pure escape, the closest he ever got to heaven these days.

  A fist pounded the door. “Thomas! I’m outta here. You’re going to be late.”

  A mental image of a much older Kara flashed through his mind. She was graying, perhaps in her fifties, and she was asking him to take her with him. Just that, “Take me with you, Thomas.”

  And then the image was gone. He blinked under streams of water, suddenly disoriented. How long had he been here? For the briefest moment he was at a loss as to how he’d even gotten here.

  Then it all came crashing in on him. He was in the shower. It was late morning. His shift at Java Hut started at noon. Right? Yes, of course.

  He shook the water from his head. “Okay.” Then added, “See you tonight.”

  But Kara was probably already out the door, headed to her shift at the hospital. The thing about his sister: she might only be in her early twenties like him, but what she lacked in age, she more than made up for in maturity. Not that he was irresponsible, but he hadn’t made the transition from life on the streets in Manila to life in the States quite as smoothly as Kara.

  He stepped out of the shower and wiped the steamed mirror with his forearm. He ran both hands through his wet hair and examined his face as best he could with streaks of water clinging to the glass.

  Not bad. Not bad. Chicks dug a little stubble, right? He’d lost some of his edge over the last couple years in New York, but Denver would be different. The troubles with loan sharks and shady import partners were behind him now. Soon as he got back on his feet, he would reenter society and find a way to excel at something.

  In the meantime, there was the coffee shop he worked at, and there was the apartment, gratis, thanks to Kara.

  He dressed quickly, grabbed a day-old sugar donut on his way out, and headed up Ninth, then through the alley to Colfax, where the boutique coffee shop better known as Java Hut waited. The Rockies stood against a blue sky, just visible between high-rise apartments as he made his way up the street. Mother was still in New York, where she’d settled in after the divorce. It had been a tough road, but she was set now.

  Indeed, the world was set. He just had to put some time in, regroup, and let life come to him as it always had, with fistfuls of dollars and a woman who could appreciate the finer things in life. Like him.

  Okay, only in his dreams at the moment, but things were looking up. Maybe he’d finally get back to one of those novels he’d written when his dream of conquering the publishing world was alive and well.

  Thomas entered the coffee shop two minutes past noon and let the door slam shut behind him.

  “Hey, Thomas.” The new dark-haired hire, Edith, smiled and gave him a wink.

  Okay . . . interesting. Pretty enough. But being a magnet for trouble, Thomas didn’t make a habit of flirting with women he knew nothing about.

  “Hey.”

  She tossed him a green apron. “Frank would like you to show me the ropes.”

  “Okay.” He stepped around her and behind the counter.

  “We close together tonight,” she said.

  Right. Frank had started up these ten-hour shifts a week earlier. “Okay.”

  “Yeah.”

  He refused to look at her, knowing what was on her mind already. It was the farthest thi
ng from his mind.

  TWO DAYS had passed, and Bill now knew what he needed to know, thanks to Tony, the two-bit crook with a New York accent who’d agreed to play by his rules for ten thousand dollars a day. Tony had studied Thomas’s movements and knew he would cut through the alley when he got off work sometime past ten.

  “Focus, Tony.” Bill stood atop the building and motioned at the alleyway. “Just make sure he heads into that dead end.”

  “Please don’t Tony me, Bill. Then what?”

  He wondered if he’d regret hiring the fool, but this wasn’t the kind of thing you advertised for unless you had time. “Then you go in after him. Stay on the radio, I’ll direct you. I want him thinking we have the streets blocked. The only other way out is up one of the ladders.”

  “And then he’s yours.”

  Bill adjusted his dark glasses, careful to keep his black eyes hidden, and studied the flat roofs across the alley. He nodded. “Then he’s mine.”

  “What about cops?”

  “What about them? We’re using silencers.”

  The New Yorker nodded. “I may get some help. Just to be sure. We get the chance, you want me to take him out? ’Cause that’ll cost you more.”

  “No, Tony. I want him up on the roof.” The rifle case lay at his feet, where he would take up position and lie in wait. One bullet to the head, nothing more, nothing less. He couldn’t risk jeopardizing the mission by winging Thomas and sending him packing.

  He has to drink the water, a voice from his past whispered. He had no idea what it meant.

  “Fine, Bill,” the man said with a smirk. “When do I get paid?”

  Bill forced a grin. “As soon as he’s dead, Tony. As soon as he’s dead.”

  THE DAY passed quickly, and Thomas managed to close with Edith without either betraying his general disinterest in her or offering any encouragement. But showing her the ropes, as she called it, had taken longer than usual, and he didn’t get out till ten thirty that night.