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  “You know how to get back?” Monique asked.

  “Yes.”

  R Thomas hung up the phone and took two steps toward the stairs before stopping short. Voices drifted up from the basement.

  They were on the stairs!

  They would find the guard. Then they would check his cell and find him missing.

  He sprinted for the back of the house, through an old kitchen, over a couch in the living room, up to a large window. No guard on the back lawn that he could see. He flipped the latch open.

  The window slid up freely. He tumbled to the ground and had the window halfway down when the first alarm came. A loud klaxon that made him jerk.

  “Man down!”

  Thomas ran for the forest.

  Carlos heard the alarm and froze on the bottom step. An intruder? Impossible. They’d evacuated the house only yesterday when the Americans had inserted their special forces in an attempt to locate Thomas. They’d learned of the mission in advance, naturally, and they’d stayed clear long enough for the team to satisfy itself that Monique de Raison’s information was simply wrong.

  Any intrusion at this point couldn’t be part of the American effort. There had been no word. There was always the possibility that their contact had been compromised, but Monique wouldn’t have been able to tell them who the contact was, only that they had one. And that was Fortier’s mistake, not his.

  His radio squawked. “Sir?”

  He unclipped the radio from his waist. “Close the perimeter. Cover the exits. Shoot on sight.”

  He took two steps and stopped. A thought filled his mind. The cut on his neck. The impossible wound from the reality that Thomas claimed to have come from. A bandage now covered the small cut.

  Carlos dropped back to the basement and ran toward the back room where the body was kept. The body of Thomas Hunter. He crashed through the first door and inserted his key into the cellar door. He shoved it open and hit the light.

  He roared in anger and threw his keys at the wall. They’d taken the body. But how could a team have penetrated his defenses, broken into this room, and taken the body in the space of ten minutes? Less!

  Unless this man truly had escaped death before. Unless . . .

  But he refused to consider that possibility. Some things pushed a man too far, and the thought of a dead man walking after three days under the sheet was one of them.

  Carlos ran from the room, snatching up his radio while he sprinted down the hall.

  “Check the windows for footprints. Search the house. Hunter’s body is missing. I want him found!”

  Now he had a serious dilemma. More serious in some ways than any he’d yet faced. Thomas crouched in the forest watching the frenzied search of the house and its perimeter. They’d found the unlatched window and had concentrated their search on that side of the house. All well and good from his perspective on the opposite side of the property. He had escaped cleanly. They had no idea which direction he’d headed. All he had to do now was reach the coordinates in southern France.

  But there was still the Book. There was no way he could leave France without the Book. Not because it might prove useful in his hands, but because it could be devastating in the wrong hands. Assuming the Book still worked. They hadn’t tested the Book here yet, but surely . . .

  The guards had been searching the house under Carlos’s direction for half an hour. What were the chances that they wouldn’t find the Book? Very slim.

  If he waited until the activity in the house settled down, attempted to recover the Book, and headed south within a few hours, he could still make the pickup.

  “Anything?” one of the guards yelled.

  “Nothing,” a man dressed in the uniform of a high-ranking French military officer answered. He stepped into an old Bentley and slammed the door. “Unless you consider an old empty diary with an entry or two something. It must have been lost by an old patient. Found it under the mattress.” He stuck the Book out the window. “Beautiful cover though.”

  The Book? It was right there in the man’s hands. The blank Book of History.

  The car roared to life. Thomas rose and almost yelled out without thought. He caught himself and dropped back down. Never mind getting caught—anything he did to draw attention to the Book would be a mistake.

  The car sped off with Thomas peering hopelessly after it.

  The Book was gone.

  He stood still, dumbstruck. The officer had no clue what he’d stumbled upon—Thomas’s only small consolation.

  Thomas spent the next ten minutes considering his predicament before finally concluding that there was no reasonable way to pursue the Book at this time. For the time being it was simply lost.

  Unless Carlos . . . Carlos would know the officer.

  Carlos. And who could get to Carlos?

  Johan. Carlos had connected with Johan once, when Thomas had cut his neck in the amphitheater. Maybe he could get Johan to dream as Carlos . . .

  Thomas turned and ran south. He had to sleep and dream. And he would, but he had only twenty-four hours to reach a helicopter that would transfer him to an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. They were waiting for him in Washington.

  10

  Chelise of Qurong stood on the balcony of her father’s palace and stared at the procession winding its way up the muddy street. They’d captured more of the albino dissidents. Why the people found this a reason for such celebration, she couldn’t understand, but they lined the street ten deep, peering and taunting and laughing as if it were a circus rather than a prelude to an execution. She understood their natural fascination with the albinos—they looked more like animals than humans with their shiny hair and smooth skin. Like jackals that had been shaved of their fur. There was a rumor that they might not even be human any longer.

  The beast Woref had caught these jackals. He was parading the fruits of his hunt for all the women to see. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He was uncouth, but not necessarily in a way that was intolerable. So she’d told herself a hundred times since learning his eyes were for her.

  She’d never marry him, of course. Father would never allow his only daughter to fall into such hands.

  Then again, marriage to such a powerful man who exemplified all that was truly honorable about being human might not be such a bad thing. Every man had his tender side. Surely she could find his. Surely she could tame even this monster. The task might even be a pleasurable one.

  Chelise lifted her eyes to the city. Nearly a million people now lived in this crowded forest, though “forest” no longer accurately described the great prize the Horde had overtaken thirteen months ago. At least not here by the lake. Twenty thousand square huts made of stone and mud stretched several miles back from the edge of the lake. The castle stood five stories and was required to be the highest structure in Qurong’s domain.

  The morning wail still drifted from the temple, where the priests were spouting their nonsense about the Great Romance while the faithful bathed in pain.

  She would never speak those thoughts aloud, of course. But she knew that Ciphus and Qurong had fashioned their religion from agreements motivated by political concerns more than by faith. They kept the name and many of the practices of the Forest Dwellers’ Great Romance, but they incorporated many Horde practices as well. There was something for everyone in this religion of theirs.

  Not that it mattered. She doubted there ever had been such a being called Elyon in the first place.

  The lake’s muddy waters were considered holy. The faithful were required to bathe in the lake at least once every week, a prospect that had initially terrified most of the Horde. Bathing was a painful experience traditionally associated with punishment, not cleansing.

  The fact that Ciphus had drained the red water within a week of Justin’s drowning and redirected the spring waters into its basin hardly helped—pain was pain, and no Scab relished the ritual. But as Ciphus said, religion must have its share of pain to prompt faith. An
d bathing in these muddy waters had none of the red waters’ adverse effects. In fact, the bathing ritual was currently in vogue among the upper class. Cleanliness was to be embraced, not shunned, Ciphus said, and this was one teaching that Chelise was beginning to embrace.

  She bathed once a day now.

  “Excuse me, mistress, but Qurong calls for you.”

  Chelise faced her maidservant, Elison, a petite woman with long black hair knotted around yellow flowers. Daffodils. Adorning oneself with flowers was the one Forest Dweller practice that Chelise enjoyed adopting more than perhaps any other. They’d never had such a luxury in the desert. As of late, flowers were becoming more difficult to find near the city.

  “Did he say why he wants to see me?” Chelise asked.

  “Only that he has a gift for you.”

  “Did he say what kind of gift?”

  “No, mistress.” Elison grinned. “But I don’t think it’s fruit or flowers.”

  Chelise felt her pulse surge. “The villa?”

  They all knew that Qurong was building a villa for her in the large walled compound referred to as the royal garden, three miles outside the city. She hadn’t seen the villa yet, as Qurong kept the section where it was being built cordoned off. But she’d been to the compound many times, usually to the library to write or to read the Books collected over the past fifteen years. The sprawling gardens and orchards were kept by a staff of twenty servants. Not a blade of grass was out of place. Elyon himself would live here, they said, such was its beauty.

  And Chelise would live there too, beside the library where she would sequester herself and write into the night. Maybe even one day discover the key to reading the Books of Histories.

  “Perhaps.” Her maidservant winked.

  Chelise ran into her room. “Quickly, help me dress. What should I wear?”

  “I would say that a white gown—”

  “With red flowers! Is he waiting?”

  “He will meet you in the courtyard in a few minutes.”

  “A few minutes? Then we have to hurry!”

  The palace had been built from wood with flattened reeds for walls and pounded bark for floors—a luxury reserved only for the upper class. The Forest People had built their homes in the same manner, and Qurong had promised that they would all live in such magnificent homes soon enough. Their simple mud dwellings were only temporary, a necessity mandated by the need to build so many houses in a short period of time.

  She discarded her simple bedclothes and took the long bleached tunic that Elison had retrieved from her closet. The gown was woven from thread that the Forest People had perfected—smooth and silky, unlike the rough burlap the Horde had made from the woven stalks of desert wheat. The costs of the campaigns against the forests had been staggering, but Qurong had been right about the benefits of conquering them.

  “The flowers . . .”

  Elison laughed. “The villa won’t be going anywhere. Take your time. Sometimes it’s best to make a man wait, even if he is the supreme leader.”

  “You know men so well?”

  Elison didn’t respond, and Chelise knew that her comment had stung. Maidservants were forbidden to marry.

  She sat in front of the resin mirror and picked up a brush. “I will let you marry, Elison. I’ve told you, the day that I marry, you’ll be free to find your own man.”

  Elison dipped her head and left the room to fetch the flowers.

  The mirror’s resin had been poured over a flat black stone that reflected her features as a pool of dark water would. She dipped the bristles of her brush into a small bowl of oil and began working out the flakes that speckled her dark hair—an unending task that most women avoided by wearing a hood.

  And when will Qurong allow you to marry, Chelise?

  When he finds a suitable man for you. This is the burden of royalty. You can’t just marry the first handsome man who walks by this castle.

  Chelise decided to forget the brushing and settle for the hood after all. She dabbed her fingers into a large bowl of white morst powder and patted her face and neck where she’d already applied paste. The regular variety of the powdery paste soothed skin by drying any lingering moisture such as sweat, but it tended to flake with the skin. This new variety, developed by her father’s alchemist, consisted of two separate applications: a clear thin salve, then a white morst powder that contained ground herbs, effectively minimizing the flaking. It might be fine for the common woman to walk around with loose flakes of skin hanging from her tunic, but it wasn’t fitting for royalty.

  Elison returned with red roses.

  “Roses?”

  “I also have tuhan flowers,” Elison said.

  Chelise took the roses and smiled.

  They descended the stairs ten minutes later and hurried toward the courtyard. They crossed an atrium that rose all five stories and featured a large fruit tree at its center. Sweet fruit—not the bitter rot that the desert tribes preferred—was the one spoil of the forest that all of the people gorged themselves on. Chelise stopped before the arching entrance to the courtyard, faced Elison, and opened her hands, palms up. “Okay?”

  “You’re stunning.”

  “Thank you.”

  She turned and kissed the base of a tall bronze statue of Elyon—a winged serpent on a pole. “I feel religious today,” she said softly, and walked into the courtyard.

  Qurong stood in a black tunic beside Woref, who was dressed in full battle gear. Behind them were the albinos under guard.

  The sight snatched away any thought of the villa. Chelise stopped, confused. Qurong meant to give her some albinos as a gift? No, that couldn’t possibly be it. His gift was to show off his little victory.

  Qurong saw her, spread his arms, and smiled wide. “My daughter arrives. A vision of beauty to grace her father’s pride.”

  What was he saying? He rarely spoke in such lofty terms.

  “Good morning, Father. I’m told you have a gift.”

  He laughed. “And I do. But first I want to show you something.” Qurong glanced at Woref, who was staring at her directly. “Show her, Woref.”

  The general dipped his head, stepped to one side, and stood tall like a peacock. For all his fearful reputation, he demeaned himself with this display of pride. Did he think she would tremble with respect at his capturing a few albinos? He should have wiped out the whole band of jackals by now.

  She looked at the poor victims. These few were a mockery of his . . .

  Something about the albino on the left stopped her. He looked vaguely familiar. Impossible, of course—the only albinos she’d ever seen were the ones dragged in as prisoners these past few months. A couple dozen at most. This man wasn’t one of them. Then what was it? His green eyes seemed to look through her. Unnerving. She averted her stare.

  The prisoners’ hands were bound behind them, and their ankles were shackled. Other than simple loin skirts, they were all naked except for one—a woman. They’d been covered in ash, but their sweat had washed most of it away, revealing broad vertical swaths of fleshy skin.

  “You don’t know who you’re looking at, do you, my dear?”

  “What is this?” a voice demanded behind her. Mother had come in. “How dare you bring these filthy creatures into my house?”

  “Watch your tongue, wife,” Qurong snapped. It was no secret that Patricia ruled the castle, but Qurong wouldn’t tolerate brazenness in front of his men.

  Patricia stopped beside Chelise and eyed her husband. “Please remove these albinos from my house.”

  “Thank you for coming, my dear. Your house will be disease-free soon enough. First, please, both of you, look closely and tell me what you see.”

  Chelise glanced at her mother, who held Qurong with a glare. Her eyes were as white as the moon, but today the moon was on fire.

  “For the sake of Elyon, woman! It won’t kill you! Look at them!”

  Her mother finally obeyed.

  Something strange was happening
with this ceremonious display, but Chelise was at a loss. They were simply five albinos in chains, headed for the dungeons and then for a drowning. Why would her father take such pride?

  She guessed it the moment Qurong spoke.

  “You see, even the great Thomas of Hunter is nothing but one more albino in chains.”

  Thomas of Hunter!

  “Which one?” Patricia asked.

  But Chelise already knew which one. The once-great commander of the feared Forest Guard was the man who was staring at her. She blinked and looked away again. He looked at her as if he recognized her.

  “Take them away,” Chelise said.

  “So you’ve captured their leader,” her mother said. “This is good news, but their presence in our house is offensive. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of commoners to cheer your victory.”

  Qurong’s jaw muscles flexed. Mother was pushing him too far. “It isn’t the commoner’s victory,” he snapped. “It’s yours. And it’s your daughter’s.”

  Hers? A smile returned to Qurong’s face.

  “Our daughter’s?” Patricia asked.

  Now Qurong’s eyes were on Chelise. “Yes, our daughter’s. Today I am announcing the marriage of my only daughter.”

  Her mother gasped.

  It took a moment for the words to sink in. She felt Elison’s hand take her elbow. But what did her marriage have to do with these albinos?

  “I am to be married?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “Well, that is good news indeed,” her mother said.

  Chelise felt a momentary surge of panic. “Married to whom?”

  “To the man who captured him, of course.” Qurong stepped to his left and put a hand on his general’s shoulder. “To Woref, commander of my armies.”

  Woref!

  Chelise felt the breath leave her lungs. The general’s hands hung loosely by his sides—big, thick hands with gnarled fingers. He was twice her size. He lifted a hand and pulled back his hood to reveal his head. Long dread-locks fell over his shoulders. There could be no mistake about it: this man was part beast.

  But he was also Woref, mightiest man in the Horde, next to her father. And even now his gray eyes looked at her hungrily. Desire. This mighty man wanted her as his wife.