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 soldier 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.

Thomas lifted his fist in a salute.

Slowly, with deliberate pronounced steps, Justin rode his horse into the valley. He stared straight ahead without acknowledging the crowd. His men marched abreast thirty paces behind.

Now the chant began. The thunder formed a word that roared from the throats of every man, woman, and child in the valley, perhaps beyond . . .

. . . Justin, Justin, Justin, Justin . . .

. . . until it sounded like pounding detonations that exploded with each roar of his name.

Justin! Justin! Justin! Justin!

Thomas had never seen such a display of worship for one man before. The fact that Justin accepted the praise without so much as a modest grin only seemed to justify their adoration. It was as if he knew that he deserved no less and was willing to accept it.

The air reverberated with their cries. The leaves of the trees along the creek trembled. Thomas felt the sound reach into his belly and shake his heart.

Justin! Justin! Justin! Justin!

Justin rode halfway into the valley and stopped his horse. Then he stood tall in his stirrups, threw his fists to the sky, lifted his head, and began to scream something.

At first they couldn’t hear his words for the roar, but as soon as the people figured out that he was saying something, they began to quiet. Now Justin’s cry rose above the din. He was screaming a name. He was bellowing a name at the sky.

Elyon’s name.

A chill washed over Thomas. Justin was claiming the authority of the Creator. And this, knowing full well that a challenge had been cast against him. The Council would rage. If Justin wasn’t innocent, then he was as devious and manipulating as they came.

Justin cried the name of his Maker, eyes clenched, face twisted, as one who was torn between gratitude and terrible fear. The valley stilled with uncertainty.

With one last unrelenting cry that exhausted every ounce of his breath, Justin screamed the name. Ellllyyyyonnnnnn!

Then he settled back in his saddle and slowly faced Thomas.

“I salute you, Thomas of Hunter,” he called.

Thomas dipped his head. But he couldn’t go so far as to salute the man in return, not with the challenge at hand.

Justin dipped his head in return. He looked at the people, first the far side, turning his horse for a full view, then Thomas’s side. His stallion stepped nervously under him. He seemed to be looking for someone.

The children, Thomas thought. He was looking at the children.

He spun his horse back around and gazed at the far side again. Then to Thomas’s side again, green eyes searching, searching.

Forty feet from where Thomas stood, a young girl stepped out of the crowd, walked a few paces into the meadow, and stopped. Her hair was blond, past her shoulders. Her arms were limp by her sides. One of her hands was shriveled to a stump. She trembled from head to foot and tears ran down her cheeks.

Thomas’s first thought was that her mother should call this poor child back immediately. The traditions of the valley were clear enough: No one ever approached any warrior honored on their march. It was a time of order and respect, not chaos.

But then he saw that Justin was staring directly at this child. Surely he hadn’t been searching for her.

A small bushy-haired boy stepped out and stopped just behind the girl.

To Thomas’s amazement, he saw that tears were on Justin’s cheeks. He ignored the gathered throng and exchanged a long stare with this young girl.

“He knows her,” Rachelle whispered.

Justin suddenly slid off his horse and faced the girl. Then he dropped to one knee and spread his arms wide.

She ran for him, weeping audibly now. Her white tunic swished around her small legs, and the flowers in her hair fell to the ground as she ran.

The girl collided with Justin in the middle of the field. His arms wrapped around her and he held her tight. A lump rose in Thomas’s throat.

The girl showed Justin her hands, which he kissed. He stood and led her ten paces from the horses, where the entire valley could see clearly. He whispered something in her ear and then walked on while she stood still. What was he doing?

Justin swept the crowds with a steady gaze.

“I tell you on this day, that the greatest warriors among you are the children,” he cried out for all to hear. “It is with ones like these that you will wage a new kind of war.”

He faced the girl, who was beaming from ear to ear now. A twinkle brightened Justin’s eyes. He stretched his hand out to her.

“I present to you my princess. Lucy!”

It was impossible to tell if this show was a deception or completely sincere. As either, it was a brilliant performance.

Justin took the white wreath from his head, placed it gently on her head, and stepped back. He settled to one knee, put one hand over his breast, and raised the other to the crowd.

A cry erupted spontaneously.

Thomas thought the girl’s face might split in two if she beamed any brighter. Beside him, Rachelle was dabbing her eyes.

Justin motioned excitedly for the boy, who now ran for them.

“And my prince, Billy!”

He swept the boy from his feet and spun him around. Then he led both of the children back to his horse, swung into the saddle, and hoisted them up, Lucy behind and Billy in front. He gave the reins to the boy and nudged the horse.

The thunder began again, now with chants of Lucy and Billy mingled in. Justin took time to acknowledge the crowd now. To look at him riding with such confidence and being so worshiped, one would think he had been a king from the ancient stories instead of a forest vagabond who’d abandoned the Guard and now spoke of treason.

When Justin finally reached the far side of the valley, he set the children down and disappeared into the trees.

“Now do you think there will be a fight at tomorrow’s challenge?” Rachelle asked. The din had died and the valley was emptying.

“Justin is either a man who deserves this praise or a man who deserves to die,” Thomas said, “in which case he’s much more dangerous than I ever could have guessed.”

“And who do you think he is?”

Thomas stared at the trees that had swallowed Justin. Was his the face of deception or the face of grace? It hardly mattered in the end, because either way it was definitely the face of treason. Any man who brokered peace with the sons of Shataiki could not be a man who followed Elyon.

“Thomas, you’re drifting on me again.”

“I think he’s a very dangerous man. But we’ll let the people decide tomorrow.”

“It sounds to me like they’ve already decided.”

“That’s because you haven’t heard the others yet. Not everyone was here.”