Barb and Jothan laughed gently at the Shins. There should have been indentations in the ground for as often as newcomers fell to their knees right there in flabbergasted surprise.
Shem slid off his horse, his grin permanent, and said to Barb and Jothan, “I’ve been waiting for years to do this to him.” He crept over to Perrin who still kneeled in an attitude of worshipful amazement. Shem crouched next to him, after propping up a sagging Mahrree.
“So what do you think, Colonel? Can we take them?”
Perrin shook his head. “So close,” he mumbled. “All this time. So . . . so close. Just a day’s ride?”
“Less than that, actually. I can make it in three hours if the conditions are ideal and the horse feels like racing,” Shem said, reveling in his friend’s pale and stony face. “And an easy day’s hike.”
“And . . . and so huge,” Mahrree finally found her voice, but it was dull and toneless. She waved aimlessly, as if giving a swarm of gnats directions. “I never . . . I never would have imagined . . .”
“I just don’t believe it,” Perrin whispered.
Peto and Deck behind them just gaped, as did Jaytsy who now had a clear view from the net litter.
Shem poked Peto, who nearly fell over. “Do you see more than a dozen now?”
Peto had no answer.
“It’s . . . it’s . . .” Perrin gestured to the scene below them.
There was a trail, and it sloped gradually from the canyon down to a meadow, leveling out after a quarter of a mile. In the meadow was a flock of sheep, and next to it was a large parcel of land with bright green new growth.
Next to that was a large house and a barn. Then a farm, an orchard, another house, cattle, some horses, more farms, herds of sheep, pastures of horses, goats, chickens, vineyards, more orchards, more houses . . . all ringed by immense mountains on the east, south, and west.
And it went on and on and on.
There was no end of the farms and houses to the north; further than any of them could see was life teeming and growing. Toward the center of the valley, about ten miles away, was a city with large buildings that could be discerned even from the canyon.
“How . . . how . . . how big is it, Shem?” Perrin finally whispered.
“We’ve settled almost forty miles from south to north,” Shem said, “and the valley averages about ten miles east to west. This is the narrowest point. Some sections are up to eighteen miles wide. And this is only the main valley of Salem. There’s more, beyond the mountains to the northwest. Several additional settlements.”
“Northwest!” Perrin muttered, his hand over his mouth as if he were uttering secrets. “I pictured maybe a few farms—”
“How many people, Shem?” Mahrree whispered, desperately trying to remember the calculations she made years ago. There had been twenty-one-hundred people who had vanished after the Great War, and here they had started a new civilization. Families as large as they wanted to be, with new people escaping from the world every year. There had to be tens of thousands of them by now.
“Last count two years ago,” Shem told her, “put us at just over one-hundred-twenty-thousand.”
Perrin twisted to face Shem. “Did I hear you right? One-hundred-twenty-thousand?”
“More than a dozen,” Peto managed to mumble.
Shem smiled broadly. “Our army is outnumbered, my friend. Now, if all of Idumea and the world with its one million—”
“But still, no one knows how many are here,” Perrin cut Shem off before he could say anything more of the place they left. Clumsily, Perrin sat down to a more comfortable position to gawk.
Mahrree leaned against him and stared. The entire valley had been laid out in a grid of farms and homes, with two rivers draining out of the canyons and meanderingly from one end to the other. The glint of the lowering sun showed canals dug to channel the water to farms, like strings of silver crisscrossing Salem.
“How many came, Shem?” Mahrree asked, still running numbers in her head. “At the beginning? Running away from King Querul?”
“We started with two-thousand, eight-hundred-twelve men, women, and children, Mahrree,” Shem said. “Each of them recorded their names in The Writings. Our version is a bit larger than yours. We never stopped writing down the miracles the Creator has done for us.”
“But,” Mahrree frowned, “how could you continue writing? Only the guide is supposed to write—”
She stopped.
Guide Pax hadn’t been killed, as the world had thought.
That meant there would have been more assistants, and . . .
“You have a guide,” she whispered.
Shem smiled. “We have a guide. Always have.”
“Oh Shem!” Mahrree breathed. Just when she thought the day couldn’t have been any more remarkable—“Can I meet him? Or is that not allowed, or, or . . .”
She really didn’t know what a guide did, apart from telling everyone what the Creator wanted them to know. Beyond that, for some reason she thought guide-ing involved wearing a thin tunic on top of the mountain in a snowfield. Without meaning to, she glanced around at the mountain peaks.
“Well, he’s really quite busy you know,” Shem said, with a hint of his usual teasing. “It’s calving season after all.”
Mahrree frowned. “Calving season?”
“Yes, that’s when the cows have calves—”
“I know what calving season is, Shem Zenos!” Mahrree was nearly bursting. “What does that have to do with the guide?”
Deck stumbled over to them. “Shem, the guide isn’t a . . . a farmer, is he?”
“No! Don’t be ridiculous, Deckett. Of course not.” Shem paused before adding, “He was a rancher, like you.”
Deck’s eyebrows shot upwards and his head fell forward.
“Wait,” said Perrin. “The Guide of the Creator is a rancher?”
“Retired now, so he can work full time as the guide,” Shem explained nonchalantly, his eyes twinkling. “Some of his sons have taken over his herds, but when it’s calving season and your cow’s in distress, who better to call than the guide?”
Seeing that they really couldn’t understand, Shem said, “Our guide was a rancher. The one before him was a teacher,” he smiled at Mahrree. “The one before him managed a granary. The one before him was a stone cutter. The one before him was a farmer. They’re just ordinary men who live as best they can. Then the Creator chooses them to be His spokesmen, and they become extraordinary men. You’ll meet the guide. He’s usually here waiting to greet our newcomers, so I’ve been stalling for him, but as I said, calving seas—” The sound of approaching horses turned Shem.
Coming up the hillside were two riders and horses, galloping.
“Then again . . . ” and Shem gestured to the distance.
Although Mahrree saw another cloud of dust approaching from about half a mile away, her attention was drawn to the two riders coming up the rise.
Perrin was already getting to his feet, and Mahrree grabbed his arm for a free ride. Perrin nearly yanked Peto up, and Deck helped Jaytsy disentangle herself from the net sling just as the two horses reined to a stop.
Immediately an older man slid off his horse, a wide smile on his face as he fairly ran to the Shins and Briters, his arms outstretched.
“Oh, I am so grateful you made it! Welcome to Salem!”
As he eagerly grabbed Perrin’s hand, Mahrree blinked in surprise. The white hair, she expected. But the floppy straw hat, which he removed and tucked under his arm as if he just remembered he still had it—no, definitely not typical guide attire. Then again, what did she know? Maybe the hat was some kind of designation, like his simple gray jacket over his black work trousers and work shirt which looked suspiciously like the Guarder clothes the other scouts wore. Still, at over seventy years old he was clearly too old for such work, even though he was slender and apparently in good health.
And then there was his smile. For some reason, whenever Mahrree read The Wri
tings and the warnings of Guide Pax or Guide Hierum, she never pictured them as happy. Or tanned. Wrinkled, yes—she’d imagined wrinkles, but eyes like those? Never had she seen a person’s eyes so open, so active, so warm.
“I’m Hew Gleace, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.” He shook Perrin’s hand and gripped Perrin’s shoulder with his other. He beamed at all of them and Mahrree couldn’t help but smile back.
Guide Gleace glanced behind Perrin to see Jaytsy. “Are you well, young lady? We’ve been so worried about you.”
Jaytsy was as tongue-tied as Mahrree, and could only nod.
“She’s well, Guide,” Barb answered for her. “But we reached them with no time to spare. The army came looking for them sooner than we’d expected. You were right in sending us out when you did.”
The guide nodded briefly and Mahrree marveled that somehow his face became clearer. “Well done in acting so quickly, all of you.” He turned to Jothan. “I’ve received a few reports so far about your night, and it sounds like there were some close calls.”
He must have felt Mahrree staring at him, although she tried not to. He smiled at her. “Mahrree Shin, I presume? After all these years, what an honor!” As she wondered what that meant, he took her hand and became lighthearted again. “I apologize for my appearance. Usually I don’t wear my worst jacket and old clothes to greet our newest refugees, but—”
“It’s calving season,” Perrin finally found some words to utter, even if they weren’t very profound, and rather obvious.
The guide turned back to him, once again his face becoming clearer, and something changed, or brightened, in his countenance.
“Colonel Perrin Shin,” he said steadily, “that’s the last time you’ll hear that title in Salem, because you are now, and always have been, our brother Perrin. You’ve been very conflicted these past few years,” the guide said, not as a question, but as a statement. “And you’ve overcome a great deal. I promise that here you’ll find peace.”
Mahrree believed him, entirely. The power with which he softly said those words wouldn’t allow for any other alternative.
Perrin felt it too, judging by his chin’s quivering.
“You’re needed here, Perrin. I want to meet with you, as soon as possible. My assistant,” he motioned to a man who had been standing quietly behind him, “will check my schedule and find a time for us to talk.” He turned to the man who was already pulling out some paper from a leather folder. “Tomorrow, dinner?”
“Your wife has already written in, ‘Dinner with Shin and Briter families.’”
Guide Gleace smiled. “She’s always one step ahead.” He nodded to Mahrree to confirm dinner, and she wondered where the Gleaces might live, and if it weren’t on the top of some mountain they’d have to find tomorrow.
The guide turned to Peto, who seemed startled to find himself next. “We’ll find a place for you as well, young man. You’ll find your calling here.”
Mahrree wasn’t sure why that struck with Peto with such force, but something caught in Peto’s throat as he glanced at Shem.
Lastly, Gleace turned to Deck, and his face became lighter again. “You look like someone who knows a thing or two about cattle. Maybe when things get settled, we could find you some of your own?”
Deck grinned. “Yes, sir!”
Only later did Mahrree realize that the least verbose of their family was the first to give an appropriate response.
The guide grinned back, and Mahrree decided cattle men just knew how to relate to each other. “But we’ll make sure you’re available when your wife’s time comes.” When Deck paled, the guide slapped him on the back. “The first one’s always the toughest, son.”
Mahrree would have thought him just an ordinary grandfather, except that there was such depth to his expressions, such clarity in his eyes, and such joy in his countenance. She’d never before seen someone exude so much gentle power and love. It was a strange and wonderful combination.
A rumbling behind them caused Mahrree to pause her study of the guide. The dust cloud she’d seen earlier was nearly on top of them, generated by horses and riders.
Guide Gleace elbowed Shem—actually elbowed him! Mahrree marveled, nudging Shem like a school boy.
“I believe,” Gleace said to Shem, “this is for you.”
Shem merely nodded and, to Mahrree’s further astonishment, for once was at a loss for words.
The horses came to an abrupt stop, and as the cloud settled it revealed a plump, balding older man surrounded by six women in their forties, along with what appeared to be some of their children, on over two dozen horses.
“Shem Zenos!” called the older man. “Where have you been? Left me alone with all these women! Waited ten years for my boy, and then you leave me? What do you have to say for yourself?” His tone was angry but his eyes were anything but.
“Sorry, Papa,” Shem said with great contrition, “but their talking drove me away. Rather live in the world than with all those sisters.”
“All of our talking?” cried one of the women who looked to be the oldest. She slid off her horse with an angry harrumph, put her hands on her hips, and strode over to Shem. “You’ve had us worried for three weeks! Now, come here,” and she caught him in a rib-crushing hug. That was the signal for the rest of the family to dismount and rush, like bees attacking a bear, but with much less stinging.
Mahrree chuckled as she slid out of the way of the crowd and over to Jaytsy, while Peto gamely tried to count the heads.
Deck leaned over to Perrin, who had made his way around the crowd as well. “Did you know he had such a big family?”
“Until two nights ago all I knew was that he had one sister, two nieces, and a father,” Perrin told them.
Still the older man sat upon his horse, watching in delight as his daughters and grandchildren smothered Shem. Eventually he slid off with a grunt and slowly walked to the swarm, peeling off women and children until he reached his son. Mahrree’s eyes were so blurry that she could barely make out Shem embracing his father, the older man’s head not quite reaching Shem’s shoulders.
The guide laughed quietly next to Mahrree as he watched the scene. She hadn’t even realized he was standing next to her.
“Guide,” she said, stumbling on the title which astonished her that it still existed, “how long has it been since Shem’s been home?”
“Oh, he’s back a few times each year,” Guide Gleace assured her. “That routine is their standard ‘Zenos Greeting’. But when he didn’t show up for his scheduled leave, all of us became nervous.”
Perrin said, “He spent his leave in Idumea, spying for us.”
Guide Gleace’s eyebrows rose. “Really? In the city itself? Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, eyeing Shem’s father. “Someone’s not going to be too happy about that. Now,” he said, replacing his hat which was entirely deformed from being squished under his arm, “if you’ll excuse me, I have some pressing business nearby. I don’t normally rush off like this, but we have some beautiful animals that I hate to see suffer. Deckett Briter understands, I’m sure. But I’ll check on you later, and we’ll talk more tomorrow.”
“Are you,” Jaytsy began haltingly, “going to . . . heal the cattle?”
Gleace smiled warmly. “I’m going to roll up my sleeves and get to work. A great deal of healing is accomplished by getting involved. But yes, I’ll be praying too. I always pray when my arm’s in up to the shoulder. Now, tonight you’ll all stay at the Second Resting Station, then in the morning we’ll take you to your new home. Again, so happy to have you here!” He waved a quick goodbye, mounted his horse with his assistant behind him, and hurried down the trail before Mahrree could even say, “Good to meet you . . .”
But that was all right, because she felt a pair of beefy arms wrapping around her, belonging to a tall woman around her age. Mahrree knew by her light brown hair and blue eyes that she must have been one of Shem’s sisters.
“So here’s
the famous Shin family!”
Perrin’s arched an eyebrow at famous.
“And you must be Mahrree!” The woman’s hug squeezed nearly all of the air out of her lungs. “I’m Yudit, Shem’s oldest sister and the one who can tell you everything you may have ever wanted to know. And I’m sure I can enlist your help in keeping my brother here. I believe you tried for a time to find him a wife in Edge?”
Mahrree laughed. “He told you that?”
“He tells us everything. Your family is our family.”
At that, Perrin folded his arms, and Mahrree knew he was feeling a bit too exposed.
“But I’m afraid I know nothing of you,” said Mahrree.
“Well, of course you don’t. But that’ll change,” Yudit said. “Your home’s not far from ours. My husband and brothers-in-law are putting the finishing touches on it right now, and the Briters’ house will be ready before that baby comes. And you,” she said to Perrin, just as easily as if she’d known him for years, “must be Perrin. You and my brother have gotten yourselves into a few tight squeezes, and I look forward to hearing your side of the stories.”
“As I look forward to hearing what he’s told your family,” Perrin said, cracking into a smile as Yudit flashed him a Shem-like grin. “Tells you everything, does he?”
“All of it good, I promise.”
“Yes.” Perrin folded his arms tighter. “I’m sure it is.” His attention, however, was drawn to the older Mr. Zenos who had pushed his way through grandchildren now mauling their uncle.
The man hesitantly approached Perrin, as if drawing nearer to a large dog he wasn’t quite sure was as harmless as everyone claimed.
Perrin put on his most engaging smile that Mahrree used to make him practice, and held out his hand.
“Colonel Shin,” Mr. Zenos began, not yet daring to take his hand. “Oh dear, that’s not right anymore. So sorry. What I mean is—”
“Just call me Perrin, sir,” he said as he gripped and shook Mr. Zenos’s hand.
Flattered, the older man relaxed, but only a little. “And please call me Boskos. In many ways I’ve worried about you as if you were my own son, but more especially because you were over my son. I never would have agreed to let him stay if he’d been assigned to anyone other than you. Thank you,” Boskos Zenos’s chin waggled and his voice broke, “for bringing him home to me.”
“It’s I who should thank you for him. I once called him my guide, before I even knew there were still guides. He’s saved our family, on more than one occasion. You can be very proud of him.”
Mahrree noticed where Shem got his crybaby tendencies, because tears rolled down Mr. Zenos’s face. “I am proud of him! Who could ask for a better son?”
Shem, seeing their conversation, broke through the crush of nieces and nephews. “Here I was supposed to introduce Boskos Zenos and Perrin Shin, and you’re already doing it? Nothing I’ve planned for is happening as I expected it!”
“Yes, there a few things none of us expected,” his father said, suddenly stern. “What did I tell you about Idumea? The messenger who came by the house said you’ve been in Idumea! Again?!”
“Yes, I was, Papa,” Shem said soberly. “I know I promised you I’d never go back, but I had to know what was happening after the Administrators declared Terryp’s land poisoned, and Mahrree publically disagreed,” he put it tactfully.
The entire Zenos clan hushed, as if Shem’s stories were an event.
“While I was there I learned that the Shins were to be taken to Idumea and tried for sedition.”
All of the Zenoses gasped in unison, and Yudit grabbed Mahrree’s arm as if she was in a tug-of-war with the world over Mahrree.
Yudit would have won, Mahrree decided, and she wondered how big the bruise would be.
Shem continued, “Mahrree likely would have been executed.”
Yudit’s mouth dropped open as she gripped Mahrree even tighter. Mahrree appreciated the sentiment, but she was going to need that arm in working order later.
“Perrin may have met the same fate, or have been incarcerated for life so that General Thorne could enjoy visiting him,” Shem said.
“Never liked those Thornes, the general or the captain,” said one of the teenage nephews.
Peto blinked at him. “You know about the Thornes?”
“Of course. Lemuel, Qayin, his wife—what was her name?”
Several voices chimed in with, “Versula.”
“Oh, yeah,” the nephew said. “All of them rotten.”
Perrin glared at Shem, who had the decency to blush.
“They want to know what I’m doing away from home, so I tell them the news. That’s all,” Shem defended. “Really, that’s all.”
Mr. Zenos tugged on his son’s inside-out jacket. “So are you back to stay now?”
“I’ve been discovered, Papa. Captain Thorne was going to transfer me, and they know I was with the Shins in the forest.”
Several of his sisters grabbed his arm in the blood-flow-stopping manner of Yudit.
“Then you’re not going back!” one of them insisted.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Peto said. “He’s already dead. Captain Thorne killed him.”
Shem’s nephew stared at him. “Thorne did what?”
“It’s a great story,” Shem grinned, “and I’d love to tell it to you all at the Second Resting Station! I’m sure there’s a big dinner waiting for us, so mount up, and I’ll give you the latest installment of the Tales from the World after dinner.”
Deck helped Jaytsy into her litter, and Perrin and Mahrree waited along the side of the trail while the Zenos clan put themselves in order to follow Shem.
“Unbelievable,” Mahrree leaned over to Perrin. “Could you ever have imagined Shem had such a family? And he stayed away from them just to be with us? We must have been kind of a let-down. And we haven’t even met his brothers-in-law yet.”
Perrin chuckled. “Good thing we brought him home, then, isn’t it. Amazing. Yes, I know I said it again.”
Two more women with Shem hair, eye, and skin coloring nodded to Perrin and Mahrree as they rode by.
“You best get in line,” one of the women said. “You’re part of this family too, you know.”
That was all Mahrree could take. She knew tears were trickling down her cheeks as she said, “We could use a family right now.”
The other sister smiled. “We are all family, Mahrree! Always have been.”
Peto was already talking with one of Shem’s nephews who, by the expression on Peto’s face, seemed to be revealing a few unknown details about Uncle Shem. Another sister rode next to Jaytsy and Deck telling them about her daughter who was expecting soon, too.
Mahrree sighed. She felt so full of . . . She didn’t know how to describe it, but she was about to overflow. Already it was coming out her eyes in a steady stream, her chest constricted with heat and tension, and her mind was positively dancing to come out her ears.
But in a good way, if losing one’s brain out of one’s ears could be considered good. And tension could be happy. And tears merry.
She knew that didn’t make a lot of sense, and that she’d probably keel over in dead joy in another minute.
Instead, she leaned over to her husband and said, “So this is what it feels like to come home.”
---
They didn’t officially ‘come home’ until the next morning. But the night couldn’t have been better. The Second Resting Station, it turned out, was only a few hundred paces away from the entrance to the canyon: a large building that looked like a typical barn from the outside, and was the Shins’ home for the night.
The Station was half the size of the mansion in Idumea. A massive gathering area held several simple but comfortable sofas and chairs, and two large fireplaces to warm weary travelers and many visitors. Attached was a large eating room with an long table, and next to that was a large kitchen stocked with supplies to take care of dozens of people for s
easons. Mahrree was told the cellar underneath was filled with even more, should she be in want of anything.
Off the gathering room, stairs led to a second level that held a dozen private rooms with cozy beds and supplies such as clothing and boots and shoes in various sizes.
The Cat thoroughly inspected the Station before discovering which bed Perrin and Mahrree would be sharing, and curled up to go to sleep on it before the Shins, Briters, and Zenoses finished dinner.
Each Zenos was a variation on a Shem theme, Mahrree realized, and at one point the laughter around the table was so loud that her ears rang. The evening lasted well into the night as the rest of the Zenos family joined them after sundown to hear the story of the escape, complete with Shem acting out scenes using his brothers-in-law and nephews as stand-ins for soldiers. Perrin finally got up to correct Shem’s details, and when the two of them started arguing about exactly how Shem had dragged them through the forest, everyone was laughing. Mahrree decided that life in Salem was going to be near to perfect.
When the Shins and Briters finally retired for the night, Peto was still chuckling about stories Shem’s nephews had shared about him.
Perrin stopped him the hall. “So you’re glad you came?”
“Been a while since I’ve had friends,” Peto said. “Nice to have a few already.”
Shem, who was staying at the Resting Station for the night in case the Shins needed anything, overheard. “You have no idea how many friends you have in Salem.”
Perrin eyed him worriedly as Shem laughed and shut his bedroom door behind him.
---
The next morning Mahrree woke up, a bit confused as to where she was, but soon found herself grinning.
Today she was going to her new home!
Cheerfully she dressed, wondered where Perrin was, and fairly skipped down the stairs.
She stopped before she reached the bottom, recognizing that the solemn murmuring between Shem, Perrin, Jothan, and Asrar wasn’t a good sign.
The four of them looked up at her, and she slowly made her way down the rest of the steps. “What’s gone wrong?”
Asrar’s chin trembled. “Dormin.”
---
Jon Offra hadn’t slept at all that night. The rumors of the Shins “death” had been spread throughout Edge and would be traveling on its way to the other villages and Idumea.
The problem was that Jon didn’t know how to think. He knew the official story, which Genev required him to memorize and repeat, along with Radan, and they realized that no promotions would be coming. But Jon knew what he had witnessed, and he couldn’t ignore the truth, because it gave him so much comfort: the Shins were alive!
Still, he had to forward Genev’s story because revealing the truth would not only end his career, but likely his life.
This morning he found himself staring at the color of the sky, which he’d been taught was blue.
But all night long it had been black, with more cloud cover.
He had lain on his bed all night, staring out the window. A man’s face formed itself in the night, a face that goaded Thorne into killing him.
They’d brought him to Thorne in the forest, just before the captain found the Shins. The man, in his late thirties or early forties, was dressed in unusual green and brown mottled clothing. It wasn’t black, as the Guarders were wont to wear. It was far more subtle.
The man was also in excellent physical condition; it took three soldiers to keep him under control, even with the ropes they used to tie his hands behind his back. They prodded him to the captain and forced him to his knees, but the man didn’t beg for mercy or weep in despair. He instead looked up confidently and smiled.
“Been a long time since I faced a man in a blue uniform,” he said casually as if meeting someone on a stroll.
Captain Thorne had slid off his horse and drew a sword—General Shin’s sword.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen that, too,” the man nodded at the weapon. “Doesn’t belong to you, Captain.”
Thorne’s lips parted in surprise, but he pointed the blade at the man. “Who are you? What are you doing in the forest?”
The man said nothing.
“Answer me! Or I’ll kill you!” Thorne snarled.
“You’ll kill me anyway,” said the man simply. “But I have no problem with that. Death holds no fear for me. But judging by the sweat trickling down your face on this rather cold night, you, Captain, are terrified of it.”
Jon, along with the other soldiers—fourteen at that time—immediately looked at Thorne.
He was sweating. But then he bellowed, “SHIN!”
“Oh, he won’t come help you,” the man chuckled coldly.
Thorne seethed in fury. “SHIN! You are trapped! This is useless! Give yourself up!”
“Ah,” the man nodded, “now I see the direction this is going—”
“Shut up!” Thorne hissed.
“Or what? You’ll kill me? You’ll kill me anyway, remember? What a tragedy. So much that I know, that I could share with you, but that’s not your style, is it, Captain? So narrow-minded . . .”
The man’s demeanor astounded Jon. He was kneeling in the freezing mud, with his hands tied behind his back, and a sword at his chest, yet he spoke as if he was merely stuck at a dull dinner. Jon wished he had a fragment of the man’s composure.
“You know nothing!” Thorne whispered furiously. “You’re full of lies, like everyone else in the world.”
“But I’m no longer in the world,” the man said enigmatically.
Thorne shook off that odd statement. “We know you are there, my former Colonel,” he sang out. “I and my one hundred men have come all this way to bring you home!”
The man in green snorted. “One hundred men. As if Shin will believe that—”
“Shut up!”
“Or you’ll kill me, I know,” the man sounded bored. “Just do it already, Captain. I’m ready to face my Creator. I’ve learned of His test, and I’ve done all I can to live according to His will. I’m rather eager to see what my final score is. Go on—send me along.”
“I will!” Thorne promised.
Jon noticed Thorne was growing more unsure of himself. He was the man with the weapon who was supposed to be calling the shots, not this prisoner kneeling before him.
“PERRIN SHIN!” he shouted, desperate to sound in control of the situation. “I have an old friend of yours. We found his horse at the spring and we just captured him. Zenos is waiting for you, my dear colonel!”
The man in green smiled. “Well, I’ve been promoted to Shem then, have I? Or is that demoted?”
Jon wondered if any of the other soldiers standing around nervously were curious as to how the man knew Shem’s first name. For that matter, how did he know the officer in blue standing before him was a captain? The night was so dark that the patches and insignias were barely readable. And where had he seen the general’s sword before that he recognized it?
“Oh, the things I could show you,” the man sighed. “All of you boys. You have no idea what the world really is, do you? But here, before you, is one who could reveal to you truths that would astonish, but you prefer to kill him instead. The truth is frightening, isn’t it Captain? So much easier to twist and distort and even ignore it. That’s what you’re doing right now, telling a lie. You’ll tell so many in your future you won’t even remember your own name. Tell me, Thorne: what color is the sky?” The man could tell he was enraging the captain, and he seemed to be enjoying it.
“Why don’t you just shut up already?”
“Because I have yet to receive a good reason for shutting up,” the man replied, almost sweetly. “And you think the sky’s blue, don’t you? Good old Idumean indoctrination—”
Thorne faced the hillside again. “You have one minute, SHIN! If you do not surrender yourself, Zenos will suffer for it!” He turned to the man. “One minute, you slagging piece of filth!”
“Ah, swearing.
I forgot men like you think cursing gives you power. But it’s only a cover up, showing how weak you truly are—”
“Shut up!”
“—and unimaginative,” he added, suddenly looking over at Jon. He winked at him before glaring again at Thorne. “But I’m warning you right now: if you take an innocent man’s life, it’ll be the beginning of a very long end for you. Once you turn down this path, there’s no going back. Murder isn’t something you can easily forget. Everything will change for you tonight, in the worst of all possible ways.”
“Shut up!” Thorne hissed. “PERRIN!” he bellowed, his patience spent. “Why let your wife and son suffer needlessly in this forest? What will Jaytsy and her husband think when they discover you’re missing?”
“Daring,” the man observed. “Assuming that Jaytsy and Deckett don’t already know.”
Jon’s mouth had dropped open at that, realizing that surely the Briters must have been in the forest as well, and that the man somehow knew that. And knew their names!
Again the man in green clothing winked in Jon’s direction.
Thorne didn’t pick up on any of that, though. “I’ve had it with you!” he pointed the sword at him. “PERRIN!” he shouted again, “Your time is nearly up! Zenos does not want to die!”
“I already told you,” said the man wearily, “I am ready to die. Are you ready to commit murder, Captain Thorne?”
“But he will if you will not reveal yourself!” Thorne announced. “I will count to ten. One! Two! . . .”
“He’s not going to reveal himself,” the man told him. “He knows you’re bluffing. Shem knows I’m willing to give my life. You’re just wasting your breath and your bravado. You’ll regret this day, I’m warning you. Look at the sky, Thorne!”
“Three!”
“Listen to that distant thunder!”
“Four! . . . Five!”
“Tell me, Thorne, do you think taking power will make you powerful? It won’t. I know that for a fact.”
“Six! . . . Seven!”
“How does your family sleep in that mansion, Thorne?”
“Eight!”
“Do they sleep on the main floor, or up the grand staircase on the second level, where the gold bedroom is?”
Jon’s eyes couldn’t have been wider. How did the man know about the High General’s mansion? Or that a bedroom had recently been redecorated in all gold?
“Nine!”
Jon thought he saw more sweat trickling down Thorne’s face.
“You’ll never sleep easily in my mansion, Lemuel,” the man said cryptically. “You don’t deserve to sleep easily, ever.”
Jon stared at Thorne whose outstretched arm was now trembling. There was nowhere on his uniform that revealed his first name was Lemuel. And who in the world would dare suggest the mansion used to be his?
“Ten!”
“You want to know, don’t you?” the man prodded. “It’s tormenting you that I know so much, but your pride will never allow you to ask me why that is. You’d rather kill me. But listen to me first, Lemuel: the sky’s not blue. As desperately as you hope it is, no matter how much you convince yourself of a lie, it’s still a lie. Blue is just an illusion. It’s really black.”
If Jon hadn’t been stunned speechless, he would have cried out to save the man’s life.
Thorne trembled more violently. Worry and rage fought to take control. Something his stance suggested he wanted to look up to the sky to see the color, but rage finally won.
“Nothing, Shin?!” he shouted to the quiet forest, refusing to check the sky. He raised his sword arm as Jon cringed. “Well, then.”
“Black,” the man in green calmly reminded him.
It was his last word.
Thorne brought down his arm with greater power and fury than Jon had ever witnessed. The man’s head was sliced cleanly from his body, and Jon gaped in horror to see it roll past him. He was vomiting into the bushes even before the man’s kneeling body fell. Over his sounds of being sick, and the retching of other shocked soldiers around him, he heard Thorne shout again.
“SHIN!” The word quavered with Thorne’s own surprise of what he just did. “Satisfied? Zenos is dead!”
And that’s how the story was born, just that difficultly. An unknown man was killed, but suddenly it was Shem Zenos. And the entire fort believed it, even the dozen soldiers who witnessed it had convinced themselves they saw something different. Genev’s intense drilling helped that along.
And suddenly Jon Offra hadn’t the foggiest idea of what to do with the truth. A brave man had faced his death alone, surrounded by the enemy, yet completely calm. He said he was ready to meet the Creator. He also said something about a test. But it was what he said about the sky that most troubled Offra.
It wasn’t blue, it was black.
And it was, all night long, as Jon tried to keep Genev’s story from mixing inappropriately with what he witnessed. He saw the bolt of lightning. He saw Perrin and Mahrree together on Clark, and Peto and Deckett and Shem, but no Jaytsy.
And then they were gone. With tears in his eyes he watched their horses break into a run, and all he could do, despite Lemuel screaming in pain next to him, was to whisper, “Ride! Ride! Go! Ride!”
He clung to that memory. The world could believe whatever it wanted to, but Jon knew the sky was completely black that night, broken only by lightning as jagged as a dagger.
It was how to live with that knowledge that kept Jon up all night.
Chapter 11—“A few people might wave
as we drive by.”