Green: The Beginning and the End (7 page)

“You’re saying that’s possible?”

“I think it’s been done. I know they kept a vial of his blood for just this reason.” He stood and walked in a small circle, fingers scratching his cheek. “You have to know, these Books of History are
my
history. I’m who I am because of them. My life is ruined because—”

“Where are these books?”

He looked at her, apparently put off at having been interrupted.

“You’re sure the blood is still around, that it exists?” she asked. “I mean, what if they did destroy it like they claim? My mother said she sent it to our lab in Indonesia, where it was incinerated. The lab doesn’t even exist today.”

“Slow down. Take a deep breath. Do you think I would’ve come halfway across the world if I wasn’t sure?”

Janae stood, unable to hide the desire to know what he knew, to strip this knowledge from his history and to own it. Why? But even as the thoughts whispered through her mind, she was aware that he was also aware of them.

Billy blinked at her. “What are you hiding from me?”

“Nothing. How can I?”

“You can’t. So why are you so desperate to know what I know?”

“I . . .” What could she say if she herself didn’t know? “I don’t know. What would you do if you learned that your mother had a vial of blood that could take you to another world?”

Her pulse was now a steady hammer in her ears.

“You’d think it was preposterous,” she answered for him. “But then what?”

“Then you’d want to possess it,” he said.

“Assuming it exists.”

“It does.”

She looked away and tried to still her irrational eagerness to stand here while he reeled her in like a helpless fish.

“Until today I was convinced that I was the only person on this planet who was qualified to find and use that blood,” Billy said. “But now I think you may be another.”

“Because you need me?”

“Because there’s something inside you that I’ve never seen. And I’ve probed the minds of a lot of people.”

“What’s that? Evil?” She walked away from him. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of any of this before today. She hid it from me all this time?”

“It’s not exactly the kind of thing you want anyone to know.”

She spun back. “I’m her daughter!”

“Even more reason to protect you.”

He really did believe all of this, and the idea was becoming only slightly familiar to her. Familiar, not reasonable, not in the least, because what Billy was suggesting made no sense at all. Who’d ever heard of such a thing?

But it did have a ring of familiarity to it.

“Give me a few hours and I’ll tell you a few things that will remove any doubt from your mind,” Billy said. “The books exist. There’s a journal that talks about them, written by a Saint Thomas hundreds of years ago. They called him the beast hunter. Never saw the book, but I’ve interviewed two people in Europe who have. I’m telling you there’re connections between our worlds that would make your head spin.”

“Beast hunter,” she repeated.

“Saint Thomas the Beast Hunter,” he said. “But it’s the blank books that interest me more. Like the ones I wrote in during my life in the monastery. I believe they still exist, probably in the safe keeping of Thomas Hunter. His blood is a sure way to get to him. I want you to help me find the blood.”

The notion overtook her with such savagery that she felt compelled to turn her face away. Such raw desire was unbecoming.

“Will you?”

I will, Billy. I will use you to feed my own needs
.

The thought surprised her. At least it had been guarded. She cleared her mind and faced him again.

“Maybe.”

Janae walked up to him and allowed a smile to caress her face. She placed her hand on his chest and ran it up over his head, through his unkempt hair.

“Might be fun.”

“I don’t care if you do use me,” he said, cutting to the heart of the matter. “I have to do this, with or without you.”

Interesting. Her deception didn’t bother him. This alone increased her admiration of him.

Janae stood on her toes, leaned forward and touched her lips to his. Then she turned and glided back to the chair.

“Tell me more, Billy. Tell me everything.”

6

The Future

Well, yes, he had awakened Patricia and Cassak. No king should have to visit the high priest in the dead of night without his wife and general at hand. Ba’al had sent his servant an hour ago, demanding that Qurong rush to the Thrall for a most critical audience.

“Slow down,” Patricia snapped, close at his heels.

He planted his foot and swung back. “The first sensible thing you’ve said all night. Why he insists I leave the palace to join him in the Thrall at this hour is beyond me, but I’m telling you, this had better be the stuff of life and death to every living being or I’ll make him pay for this arrogance.”

She stopped and glared with gray eyes. Patricia had always been provocative when angry, but in the wake of his latest ailment—this ceaseless wrenching in his gut that denied him sleep—he felt only annoyance. She’d taken a moment to apply a dusting of morst to her face and to throw on a hooded black silk robe that covered her body from head to heel. Her stark white face peered from the hood like a ghost. The tattoo of three hooked claws on her forehead had been perfectly placed, red and black against her white skin.

“Watch your tongue, you brute,” she cautioned. “We’re out in the open here.”

“With whom? My general, who’d die for me?” He flung his hand out toward the dark city on the other side of the black lake. “Or with the rest of these rodents under Ba’al’s spell?”

“Commander!” Her term when she was beyond despair. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes, I’ve finally misplaced my senses! Ba’al will have a reason to make a play for the throne, and I’ll be forced to kill him. Such a tragedy. You’re quite sweet to suggest it, my bride.”

Qurong swung around and continued his march toward the Thrall, lit by the glow of flaming torches in the temple’s towers and doors.

“That’s not what I meant,” Patricia objected.

“No, of course you don’t wish Ba’al dead. You’d likely prefer to kiss his feet.”

“You’re a double-minded oaf, Q. One minute you wake me, insisting that I offer a sacrifice to Teeleh to heal your ailments, and the next you curse him and his high priest. Which is it? Do you love Teeleh or do you hate him?”

“I serve him. I am his slave. Does that mean that I must drink his blood and have his children?”

“If he demands it.”

“Let’s just hope this aching in my belly isn’t his growing child.”

“That would be a sight,” his ranking general, Cassak, said behind them.

Patricia wasn’t finished. “If you serve Teeleh, you serve Ba’al. One of these days you’ll get that through your thick skull.”

“Like I served Witch, then Ciphus? Then Sucrow, now this wretch Ba’al?”

“Stop!”

This time when he caught her eye, he saw he’d gone too far. The lines of her ghostly face were etched with fear.

“You will not speak about him that way in my presence!” she said.

“And what am I, your poodle to play with?” Qurong demanded. Then, with a clenched fist, “I am Qurong! The world bows at my feet and cowers under my army! Remember whose bed you share.”

“Yes. You are Qurong and I love Qurong, leader of all that is right in this cursed world. I am humbled to have known you, much more to be called your wife.”

She was toying with him, he thought, only half-serious, but enough for Cassak to believe it all.

Patricia continued. “And you will show your love for me by keeping me away from danger.”

“You’re more afraid of that witch than of me?”

“Of course. You love me. Ba’al hates us both, and his hatred would only be aggravated if he heard you speak of Teeleh or him the way you do.”

Qurong frowned, but his fight was gone.

A sharp pang of pain cut through his belly, and he resumed his march down the muddy path that led to the Thrall.

They walked in silence until they reached the wide steps that rose to the large gate. It was guarded on either side by bronzed statues of the winged serpent, a likeness of Teeleh that their first high priest, a scheming character named Witch, had supposedly seen in a vision. Few besides the priests had claimed to see the great beast in these last twenty-five years, since the waters had turned to poison. Woref, the general, had once claimed to have seen Teeleh. In Qurong’s distant memory, Teeleh was more of a bat than a serpent.

Truth be told, Teeleh was probably a figment of their imagination, a tool the priests used to maintain their hold on power. There had been some sightings of the Shataiki bats that lived in hidden Black Forests, and some of the black bats seemed to have an unexplainable power, but nothing like the power that the priests attributed to them.

When Qurong first defeated Thomas of Hunter and took the Middle Forest, they had just lost Witch in battle. Upon defeating Thomas and left without a priest, Qurong had cautiously accepted the offer of the half-breed, Ciphus, to protect them from evil. Ciphus introduced them to a strange brew of religion that he called the Great Romance, which involved worshipping both Teeleh and Elyon, the pagan god of the Forest People.

Ciphus’s time lasted just over a year, until three months after the albinos made off with Chelise, the very same traitor who was now out to poison them all with the red lakes. His daughter had become a she-witch herself.

What started out as lenience toward the albinos became bitter remembrance, and Qurong had fully supported Sucrow’s bid to kill Ciphus and return the Horde to the worship of Teeleh, the winged serpent who ruled the powers of the air. In his death, Ciphus became a martyr for all half-breeds to revere, emboldening Eram, who soon after defected with the rest of the half-breeds.

Sucrow’s reign as high priest ended on a goose chase for an amulet that reportedly had great power. Following Sucrow’s death, a priest had come to them from the desert, stood tall upon the Thrall’s highest landing, and declared that Teeleh had chosen him to be high priest of all that was holy and unholy. He claimed to have lived with Teeleh until now, when his time had come. He was the servant of the dragon in the sky. Qurong had seen the people’s awe of this skinny sorcerer and agreed to make him high priest.

He told himself a thousand times afterward that it had been a mistake. At best, the balance between Qurong’s political power and Ba’al’s religious power was delicate. There would come a time soon when Ba’al would have to die. He was altogether too full of himself, drunk on his own power.

“Don’t get me wrong, wife,” Qurong said as they approached the steps. “I wouldn’t be here without a healthy respect for Teeleh. I support all of this . . .” He waved at the Thrall that loomed high above them like a black sentinel with flaming eyes, blocking out half the sky. “I’ve kissed the feet of Teeleh’s vessel, Ba’al, this so-called dragon from the sky, on a hundred occasions. But that doesn’t mean he’s a god any more than my enemies are gods. He’s only human flesh doing the bidding of a god.”

“Just keep his knife away from your throat,” Patricia said in a low voice.

“Exactly.” She could be reasonable when she wanted to be. “I swear, sometimes I don’t know who’s worse, the albinos, the Eramites, or my own priests. None of them allows me any sleep. My gut is in a knot over all of this.”

“Not now,” his wife warned.

One of the night watchmen opened the gate for them, and they headed across the stone floor to a large atrium surrounded by more of the bronze serpents.

“This way, my lord.”

Qurong faced his right, where a hunched priest hidden beneath a hooded black cloak dipped his head and walked toward the sacrificial sanctum. The priest lifted his spindly arm to a large wooden door charred by fire and gave it a push.

Orange light from a dozen flames spilled out into the hall. He could see the altar on a platform inside, blazing candlesticks on either side. An animal—a black-and-white goat strapped spread-eagle on the altar—sacrificed.

But Ba’al’s sacrifices were more like butchery. And although he killed animals with the same regularity that he ate and relieved himself, Qurong didn’t know the priest to offer sacrifices in the middle of the night.

Qurong walked into the sanctum, the holy of unholies, as Ba’al called it. Flames crackled from the torches on the room’s perimeter. Thick, purple velvet curtains hung from the tall ceiling on each side, framing large gold etchings of the winged serpent. Directly behind the altar, the same material closed off an arched passageway, which led to Ba’al’s private library. What kind of plotting and deception was conceived behind that curtain Qurong could only guess, but those guesses were not happy thoughts.

“Where is he?” Patricia whispered.

Qurong hesitated. “Doing the work of Teeleh.”

That he, the supreme commander of more than three million souls, had agreed to leave his home in the middle of the night for an audience with Ba’al was offensive enough. That he had to now wait in these ghastly chambers while the witch took his bloody time wiping off his wet blades was infuriating.

But this was not the place to betray his emotions. Qurong knew all too well how revered Ba’al was among the common people, particularly now, during the days of the black moon. During the last lunar eclipse, Ba’al came forth from the sanctum and declared that Teeleh had shown him a vision of the coming red dragon, who would devour the children of all who betrayed him. All those who marked themselves as loyal servants of Teeleh and Ba’al would be spared. Three claws carved on the forehead, the mark of the beast’s perfection.

Qurong had received the mark of the beast, naturally, but he doubted that it would truly protect him, assuming the beast existed.

The priest who’d let them in climbed the two steps to the platform, shuffled slowly around the altar, and parted the curtains with a withered hand. The door behind the drapes closed softly, and they were left alone.

“This is asinine,” Qurong mumbled.

“Hush.”

The curtain parted and Ba’al stepped into the inner sanctum, dressed in his usual black silk robes with a purple sash around his neck. Layers of gold, silver, and black beads hung over his breast. The circular serpent’s medallion hung from a silver chain.

Ba’al’s narrow white face peered at Qurong from his hood, like a king judging his subject. The expression was enough to make Qurong’s blood boil.

The priest carefully navigated the steps down from the platform.

“Thank you for coming to me so late, my lord.” His voice was low and wet, the sound of a man who needed to clear his throat.

“This had better be good.”

Ba’al lifted his face to the Horde leader, and for the first time Qurong saw that the three claw marks on his forehead had been reopened. Thin trails of blood snaked down his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. The man was a masochist.

“Good?” Ba’al said. “The true child has been born, and now the dragon will wage war on her illegitimate children. That can hardly be good.” He walked around a table to the side. The goat’s head lay on a silver platter, still bleeding, and Ba’al dipped his long black fingernail into the blood. “Babylon will become drunk on her blood yet.”

“Idiots may swoon with your talk of children and dragons and the end of all times,” Qurong said, “but I’m a simple man who wields the sword. Let’s not forget that here.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Your sword, your power, your stranglehold on the Horde. Forgive me if I suggested that the dragon doesn’t hold his king in the highest regard. He was the one who made you king, after all.”

Qurong had no patience for this. “So what is it that is so urgent to keep me from sleep?”

“The day for your full glory has come, my lord, all in good time. But first I must know who you are and who you serve.”

“What glory? Another ritual to this god who has abandoned us?”

“Remember where you are, my lord.” Ba’al glanced at the walls without moving his head, then shifted his eyes back to Qurong and brought his wet fingers to his lips. “He has ears everywhere,” the high priest whispered around his taste of goat’s blood.

Qurong held his tongue.

“Your loyalty hasn’t weakened, has it? My king?”

“What are you speaking of?”

“You do still believe that Teeleh is the true god. That the dragon has given you Babylon?”

Ba’al had begun this Babylon business a year earlier; Qurong wouldn’t put it past the man to suggest renaming Qurongi City, perhaps calling it Dragoni or something as foolish.

“What have I done to suggest any slackening of my loyalty?” he demanded.

“You still believe that we are the abomination of desolation, the dragon’s great Babylon? That we are his instrument to crush the rebellion of those who stand against Teeleh? That it is our prerogative and our privilege, our duty, to drain the blood of every living albino? That there will come from times past an albino with a head of fire, who will rid the world of the poisonous waters and return us unto Paradise?”

Now they were retreading old ground, these prophesies that Ba’al had pulled from his so-called visions.

Still, Qurong would give him the benefit of the doubt. “That is correct.”

“That your very own daughter, Chelise—”

“I have no daughter,” he interrupted. The priest was egging him on, knowing how the name had haunted his nightmares for so many years.

“That Thomas and the woman at his side lead the rebellion against Teeleh.”

“Get on with it, priest. Surely you didn’t bring me here to remind me of all I know.”

Ba’al stared at him for a few beats, then turned his back and walked toward a desk along one wall. His voice was hardly more than a hoarse whisper.

“Have you ever considered drowning, my lord?”

Qurong couldn’t immediately respond. What kind of blasphemy was this?

Patricia stepped up next to him and dipped her head. “Forgive me, my priest, but you go too far.” Her voice was strained and high. “An accusation of this kind is dangerous.”