Lunatic (26 page)

And he was reeling. He'd defied Shaeda. He'd defied Shaeda.

"You will pay for such, Chosen One. . . "

Silvie kept her hands close to her blades.

"I require a human, son of Tanis. Which I choose matters not. Remember such. "

Johnis fought the heady, dizzy sensation. Was that really the key? Silvie meant more to him than anything. Than life itself. Than Shaeda's power. Her will.

Several seconds passed as he took in that thought. And Shaedas chilling threat.

Reddish-purple haze overpowered him. Her eyes seeped into him. Razor-sharp vision cleared his mind.

The mission.

"Keep a sharp eye on the west," Johnis said. "I hope your boys are in for a hard ride."

Walking into a hidden Black Forest dead on his feet would be suicide. But stopping to rest would give Warryn and his men time to pull something.

His head was pounding, the migraine digging hard into his skull, tearing at his brains. Shaedas eyes ... the haunting eyes that forever watched him.

Through her eyes he saw desert. He saw the canyon.

"Come along, my pet. . . "

"We can't go on forever," Warryn said.

His mind was worn thin. He couldn't resist. No longer wanted to. Besides, Shaeda didn't care much for Warryn either.

"You may finish him in due time, my pet ... "

He could live with that.

"Are you priests or warriors?" Johnis scoffed. "Warriors ride hard and fast, and they certainly don't talk like that."

He drove the horse faster, chuckled to himself when Warryn had to work to keep up.

CASSAK SQUINTED IN THE MOONLIGHT, WAITING FOR THE scout's report, watching the lone figure run over the dunes and toward his twenty-five warriors in black robes. All mounted, spread out far enough to be out of sight, but not signaling, range.

Twenty-five soldiers to make sure twenty-five serpent warriors didn't do anything foolish and start a war. Of course, the numbers were mostly for protection from Eram.

He'd sent a message out to the general, on Marak's order, so the man wouldn't think this was a war party. Not that he intended to be seen.

But Marak's head wasn't in the game. Not this time.

Apparently his quarry had earned the displeasure of the dark priest, who wanted the pair in custody badly enough to send out the throaters.

A lot of trouble for a piece of wood on a leather cord. They'd all gone insane.

"Bad enough they squabbled over a pack of albinos," Cassak muttered. "Now we get to squabble over a myth. Shataiki lair ..."

What Marak didn't know was that Sucrow wanted the pair dead once he had the amulet. He suspected but didn't actually know.

"Captain." One of his men broke Cassak's thoughts.

"What?"

"About the general's slave ..."

Oh. Right. The wench. That was another problem. She was supposed to be dead. And Cassak wasn't entirely convinced he was buying Marak's new sadistic streak.

The general hadn't been right since his family's death.

Since Cassak exposed them to Desecration.

Even albinos shouldn't scream like that. And then they'd stopped screaming.

"What about her?"

"Well, sir, she's ... albino."

"Glad you noticed, fool. Get back to business and let the general handle his own." The man saluted and left without further protest. Cold, yes, but not something Cassak cared to deal with yet.

Two guards on watch stopped his scout at the front line and questioned him, then allowed him through. The little scout hurried over the sand and dropped to one knee before his captain.

"You've found them?" This was an unnecessary question. The scout would not have returned otherwise.

"They're almost into open desert, Captain." The scout rose. "Still headed south. I overheard part, sir. They're headed toward a canyon. If we press through the night we won't be far behind."

Cassak nodded. "We'll spread out farther and surround the canyon. Tell everyone to stay quiet or lose their heads. Borrow a horse and go."

MARAK RETREATED TO HIS ROOM AND PULLED OUT RONA'S leather journal. She'd started writing in it when they met, and when she became albino she sent it to him. His mind's eye could still imagine her strong, slender hand penning each page in her neat script.

But as he read, his mind also wandered. He'd barely spoken a word to Darsal since noon and finally sent her back to the house while he completed his work for the remainder of the day.

He shouldn't trust her. She wouldn't get far with her legs chained and his men all over Middle. Sucrow would know he hadn't killed the wench. Then there was the search party in the south desert. Tempting the rebels to arms.

Cassak would keep the peace. He had to trust his captain.

He'd come home to a clean, mostly dark house complete with a candlelit dinner. Darsal hadn't said a word, and he didn't comment on it. After the meal he'd put her in the study and had told her to stay there. His only means of being alone right now.

Darsal.

After today there could be no more touching. Marak grumbled to himself and stood. He wanted a dip in the lake.

Darsal's silhouette was in the doorway, watching him.

"May I come in?"

He grunted and stepped past her. "I'm going to the lake to bathe."

"Why do you bathe in the lake?"

The question surprised him. Marak didn't respond.

"Middle Lake won't heal if you bathe in it. And it isn't red, so you can't drown. Why bathe in a muddy lake?"

"What kind of question is that?" He didn't know if he should be offended or not. It was an odd question. A direct, personal question.

"An honest one."

"You should know the answer."

"I've been away a long time. I don't know what's happened here in the last five years. And five years ago you wouldn't have done a ritual bathing, muddy water or not."

Marak frowned. He knew the answer but didn't like the idea of her making him explain it. "I think you should stop asking questions."

"I have a lot to catch up on. Humor me."

After trying to kill her, why not?

"After the drowning, when we took Middle, many of the albinos came over to us because they refused to drown. It became permanent. Some of them continued the ritual bathing out of habit, as tribute to Elyon. The few who still believe such a person exists."

"I thought you couldn't change."

She didn't say Scab. Interesting.

"Since the drowning, that's true."

"And you bathe?"

His jaw tightened. True, that was one ritual he adopted. But the cool water felt good on his skin. It was only the red water that was dangerous.

This question-and-answer session was over.

Marak started to leave. "Stay here and try not to get into any trouble."

"I've been through worse."

He swerved. "You understand what happens when Sucrow hears this, don't you? Do you have any idea-"

"My life is already forfeit." Darsal spoke softly. It was that very look that had spared her life in the dungeons. The dark hair, the wide eyes. The defiance, even when staring death in the face.

"So you're determined to bring me to death with you? Is that it?"

"No."

"Darsal, do you have any idea what Sucrow can do to an albino?"

"Yes. I'm well aware of what the Dark Priest can do."

Moonlight streamed from the bedroom window through the door and lit her face, pronounced her scar. Her eyes were glossy in the silver beams striking against her long black hair.

She was gorgeous. Darsal had bathed and put on a floralscented morst spiced with citrus, and a simple, light-colored nightdress she'd made from an old tunic of his. A sash belted it around her slim waist.

Shake it off, Marak. She's albino. She's an enslaved albino condemned to death. Shake it off

That careless touch changed everything.

All the emotions he'd had for Rona were now directed toward this diseased woman who could fight like a man and who carelessly threw her life away for a fool's notion of Elyon "curing" him.

"Why did you come back, after all of that? You would have escaped. You would be safe and at home with family by now. Surely your scouts would have ..."

Darsal's head lowered.

"Would have ..." Marak trailed off, watched her cover her face with both hands.

His blood ran cold. "Your family is gone, aren't they?"

Darsal didn't answer right away. Her breath came in short, forced spurts. "My story is a long one, Marak. I didn't drown until the day you took me for your slave."

Jordan. It had to be Jordan and Grandfather. They'd made another one sick. But how? How had she ... ?

"My parents died when I was a child," she continued. "I was raised by an uncle who was a drunk." Her voice caught, and she took several moments to compose herself. "If you call that being raised."

Quiet.

"You don't have to tell me."

Darsal gave a soft smile.

Rona, coming close for a kiss.

Marak slammed the thought back. He was not falling for another condemned, diseased woman! Period!

"You told me," she said. "It's all right." She went on to tell him about a boy who'd started watching out for her and eventually stopped the abuse by killing her uncle and leaving with her. How they'd fallen in love.

She told him everything, beginning with the challenge that went out from the Forest Guard to the books to how she'd spent ten years in another world. To her return to a world gone mad.

"It was like trading one version of hell for another."

"No wonder you were curled up under that cloak like that." He sighed.

Darsal managed a smile. "I thought you were gloating." She sniffed and looked down at him. "I see now you were only angry."

She had no idea how angry he'd been. Heat tinged his face and neck.

Qurong. Sucrow. A botched albino hunt. Eram's rebellion.

Jordan's classic obstinacy.

"I was ready to wring his neck. I was angry with him. With me. With ... everyone." Marak rubbed his temples. "I thought you were an albino spy."

"Maybe in another lifetime I would have been. But in that one I wouldn't have come into the presence of the mighty general of Qurong."

He allowed himself a small smile. "So ... why did you come back?"

She sat with him, leaned against the opposite wall in the hallway, shackles clinking, and told him about her time with her cellmates. How they convinced her to escape. Marak noticed she left out anything that might give him direction to the pool's location.

Her description of the actual drowning was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.

Darsal came alive. Even in the pale light, her eyes brightened and her whole face took on another dimension. She went up on her knees, using hands and arms and sound effects to demonstrate.

The tale left Marak a little breathless.

What amazed him even more was how naive she was.

Jordan and Marak had both been present when the lakes turned to red, when the beautiful waters were defiled with blood.

Darsal clearly hadn't.

Marak knew at least the account, though he didn't believe all the rumors, nor that anything was to be gained by trying to drown oneself in the poisoned water.

Darsal trailed off. "What?"

A thought escaped before Marak could rein it in. "You. You are completely different from anyone I have ever met."

Liar, the inner voice rebuked. You were betrothed to Rona.

Darsal was so much like Rona ...

She hesitated. "I'm glad you think that, General. I really am."

Marak tensed. This wasn't right. If he showed any sympathy toward her at all, he would die with her. That would not happen. He wasn't Jordan. He wasn't throwing his life away.

Strengthening his resolve, he moved to stand.

"May I ask you something?"

The floral and citrus overpowered the smell of her skin.

He should deny her request.

Ronas eyes stared back at him.

"What?"

"What was between you and Jordan?"

His heart lurched, his throat constricting. "I will not discuss that." He clenched his teeth and choked down the surge of emotion that swept over him.

Silence. "I understand."

"No," he said flatly. "You don't."

Darsal turned and looked straight into his eyes. "I understand, Marak. More than you realize."

He shut his mouth. Yes, she had told him all of that, hadn't she? The loss had turned her bitter and spiteful for a decade. Marak could only nod.

More silence.

Darsal got up. "Come on. You wanted to bathe, and I've kept you."

Marak rose more slowly. Then a thought came to mind.

Rona.

Sucrow's rituals.

"Darsal, I need you to hear me on this one thing. Can you do that?"

She looked up with dark eyes. "Maybe."

"What happened today can never be repeated, do you understand? Sucrow would love to find a way to kill both of us. I don't play by his rules. I don't ask my men to play by his rules or adhere to his religion. I won't put it past him to spy on us. You have to be careful. If you can't do this, it's over."

"Marak..."

"Do this my way, Darsal. Do this my way, and it might not come to that. Can you do that, Darsal? Can you trust a Scab general?"

"Sucrow would-"

"Sucrow takes albinos and tortures them, Rona. He does unspeakable things to them on the altar." Marak's jaw tightened.

Darsal's face went stoic. For a second they froze.

He'd called her Rona again.

It wouldn't take her long to put the pieces together. He'd let Sucrow do whatever he wanted to his own lover.

Sweat beaded on his skin.

"And Sucrow makes the rules," she said.

He didn't respond. The unspoken question lingered. Darsal spoke first.

"Go. I'll mind the house."

She was gone.

Marak stared. Only when she had all but vanished around the corner did he snap out of his trance. "Darsal ..." But she was gone.

He put on his boots and cloak and left with a heavy heart.