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He'd objected bitterly to Qurong's decision to delay her marriage after the drowning of Justin. If Martyn had still been with them, Woref 's indis-cretion that night might have cost him his life. But in the confusion of such wholesale change, Qurong needed a strong hand to keep the peace. Woref had assumed Martyn's place and performed without fault. There wasn't a Scab alive who didn't fear his name.

“Sir?”

Soren stepped up to him, but Woref didn't acknowledge him. He suppressed a flash of anger.
Did I say come? No, but you came anyway. One
day no one will dare approach me without permission.

“They've gone, as you ordered.”

Woref walked back to his horse, lifted his boot into the stirrup, paused to let the pain in his joints pass, then mounted. The albinos claimed not to have any pain. It was a lie.

“Tell the men that we will execute one of them for every albino who escapes,” he said.

“And how many of the albinos do we kill?”

“Only as many as it takes to capture Thomas. They're more useful alive.”

4

Y
our sister,” Mikil said. “Kara.”

Mikil felt her knees weaken. They stood deadlocked, stares unbroken. The others were looking at both of them as if they'd gone crazy.

“I . . .” Thomas finally stammered. “Is that possible? I . . . I haven't dreamed for thirteen months.”

She'd awakened in her tent with the certain knowledge that she wasn't entirely herself. Her mind was full of thoughts beyond those she would ordinarily entertain. In fact, she was considering the strange possibility that she was Thomas of Hunter's sister. Kara.

The moment she considered the possibility, her mind seemed to embrace it. The more she embraced it, the more she remembered Thomas's dreams, and more, Rachelle's dreams. As a woman named Monique.

Then she knew the truth. Kara of Hunter had made a connection with her. Details seeped into her mind. Thomas's sister, who'd just fallen asleep in Dr. Bancroft's laboratory, was dreaming as if she were Mikil at this very moment. Mikil's own husband, Jamous, lay asleep beside her. She had no children. She was well liked if a bit stiff-necked on occasion. She was Thomas's “right-hand man.”

But she was also privy to Kara's situation in the histories. She had Mikil's memories and Kara's memories at once. She was technically Mikil—that much was obvious—but she was suddenly feeling nearly as much like Kara.

So Kara had joined her brother in his dreams—at least that was how she thought of it. Now Kara stood gaping at a spitting image of her own brother plus about fifteen years. He wore a sleeveless tunic that accentuated bulging biceps. Below, a short leather skirt that hung midthigh over a well-worn beige tunic. His boots were strapped up high over well-defined calves. The man before her had to be twice as strong as her brother.

“Wow,” she said. “You're quite the stud.”

Stud? Where had that word come from? Kara.

“A horse?” William said. “You insult him?”

“No, she means something else,” Thomas said. “My friends, I would like to introduce you to my sister from my dream world. There, her name is Kara.”

William's left eyebrow arched high. “She looks like Mikil to me.”

“Yes, but evidently Mikil's brought Kara for a visit.”

“Surely you can't be serious,” William scoffed.

Mikil grinned. “More serious than you imagine. How else would I know to call him a stud? In the histories it means ‘strong,' among other things. Kara's never seen him in this state, and she's surprised by just how strong our Thomas is compared to her brother, who looks the same, less about fifteen years and forty pounds of muscle.”

Mikil nearly laughed out loud at the twists in her mind. She felt like both women at once—an exhilarating experience, to say the least.

To Thomas: “Can I speak with you in private? Just a moment.”

They stepped to the side and she spoke in a whisper. “You haven't dreamed for thirteen months, you said. Do you know why?”

By his frown, he seemed to be secondguessing his initial conclusion that Kara was dreaming through Mikil. “Where did we grow up?”

“Manila,” she said.

“Where does our mother live?”

“New York. Satisfied?”

Slowly a smile crossed his face. “So you're alive, then. The virus didn't kill you?”

“Not yet. We still have ten days to go. You were killed in France by Carlos two, maybe three, days ago. And now Monique's missing as well.”

He stared at her, mind grappling with her information.

“Rachelle was killed thirteen months ago by the Horde,” he said.

“I know. I'm Mikil. And Kara's sorry . . . terribly sorry.”

“So you're saying that thirteen months have passed here but only a couple of days there?” he asked.

“Evidently. And you're saying that you haven't dreamed of Thomas in France in all this time?”

“The last dream I had of Thomas was falling asleep next to Monique.”

“Where you were shot by Carlos,” Mikil said.

His eyes widened. “Then I was right! I fell from my horse here. I was killed, but Justin healed me through Rachelle.”

“But you're not alive in France?” she asked. “When you were brought back before, you came back to life in both realities.”

“No. I never died before. I was healed instantly, before I actually died. Both times at the lake. This time I was dead for hours before Rachelle found me.”

The exchange stalled.

“By the Hordes who pursue us, what is all this nonsense?” Ronin demanded. They were obviously being overheard.

William grinned. “It's our fearless leader's dream world. Apparently Mikil has joined the game.”

Mikil ignored them. “Then you are dead in France, aren't you?”

“I must be.”

“But you've only been dead for a couple days. Maybe three.”

“So it would seem. And Monique's missing because she died when Rachelle died. She was connected with Rachelle the way you are with Mikil. I haven't dreamed because there's nothing for me to dream.”

“And I'm here to bring you back,” Mikil said.

Thomas set his jaw. “I can't go back. I don't want to go back. I'm dead there! I'm better off thinking that the histories were a dream.”

“I'm no dream. My knowledge of our childhood in the Philippines is nothing like a dream.” She shoved out her arm and showed him the cut. “Is this cut a dream? The Raison Strain is only days from showing its first real teeth, France has just fired a nuke at Israel, the world is about to die, and the best I can figure it, you're the only man alive who can stop any of it. Don't tell me it's a dream.”

He looked at her skeptically.

“It's been thirteen months—you've lost your edge,” she said. “But as you said yourself, you died here when Thomas was killed in France. So now that I'm linked with Mikil, will she also die when the virus kills me in ten days?”

The lights were starting to fire in his mind. She pushed.

“I—Mikil, that is—was wrong to doubt you. The world depends on—”

“Then the world is depending on a dead man,” he said.

“This is utter nonsense!” William said. “There are more important matters to deal with than this game. You've lost your mind along with him, Mikil. Now, I would like the blessing of this council to take my tribe deep into the desert to form our own faction of the Circle. That is why I've come, not to reminisce about your dreams.”

Mikil and Thomas closed ranks with the group.

“You forget so quickly, William?” Thomas said. “How do you think I made the bombs that blew the Horde back to hell? Was that my magic? No, that was information I learned from the histories.”

“Yes, your memories of the Books of Histories, recalled in some trance or dream; I can accept that, however unlikely it sounds. But this non-sense of saving people in history . . . please! It's laughable!”

“You've always doubted me, William. Always. I can see now that you always will. Even Justin talked about the blank Book . . .”

Thomas stopped.

Mikil recalled Justin's words to them in the desert thirteen months earlier. She said what Thomas was thinking. “Justin said the blank Book of History created history. But only in the histories. What could that have meant?”

“We've never known,” Thomas said. “Never had a reason to care much about the histories since . . .” He looked at Mikil with wide eyes. “Only a couple of days, you say?”

“Believe me, the histories are real. And if you don't care about them because you've gone and died in France, you should care about them because Kara is still alive.”

Thomas studied her. He turned to Ronin. “You have the Book?”

“Which Book?”

“The blank Book. This Book that supposedly only works in the histories.”

Ronin hesitated, then pulled out a second Book wrapped in canvas. He extracted it from the packaging. He ran a hand over the cover. The title was embossed in a corroded gold foil.
The Story of History.

“How would a history book make history?” Mikil asked, walking up next to Thomas.

“You're saying that this Book has power in another dimension that is called ‘the histories'?” Jeremiah asked. “How is that possible?”

Thomas hurried toward Ronin, suddenly eager. “May I?”

Ronin handed him the Book.

“Could it be?”

“Nonsense,” Jeremiah said.

“You said it yourself,” Thomas said. “The analogies and metaphors. The stories,” he said, his fingers tracing the title. “They're real. Words become flesh and dwell among us. Isn't that how the Beloved's Book begins?”

Thomas opened the Book. Plain parchment. No words. Thomas's eyes met Mikil's, wide with wonder.

She looked at the Book again. “Do you think . . .” But she couldn't say what she was thinking. How was it possible?

“This is the most outlandish thing I've heard,” William said. “You expect us to believe that if you write in that Book, something will actually happen, based on the words alone?”

“Why not?” Thomas said.

“Because the whole notion of the word becoming flesh is a metaphor, as you said. Justin was not some scribbling in a book. You're crossing a line here.”

“You're wrong,” Thomas told him. Then to Mikil, “Where Kara and I come from, no one is required to dive into a pool of red water and drown to follow Justin. They are simply required to die metaphorically.” He looked at Kara. “They take up their crosses, so to speak. Tell them, Kara.”

She was making the connections as quickly as he was. Neither of them had been practicing Christians, but they'd grown up with a chaplain for a father. They knew the basics of Christianity well enough.

“‘Take up your cross and follow me,' Jesus said. He was executed on a cross, as were many of his followers later. But his followers aren't required to die in that fashion.”

“Exactly,” Thomas said. “Yet here our following isn't metaphorical at all. The same could be said about evil. There the people don't wear a disease on their skin—it's said to be in their hearts. But look at the Scabs. Their refusal to follow Justin in drowning shows up as a physical disease.”

William seemed somewhat stunned by this revelation. He glanced at the others, then back at Thomas. “So now you think this Book, which is from here where metaphors express themselves literally, might do the same in this dream world of yours?”

“Who has a quill?” Thomas demanded. “A marker, anything to write with. Charcoal—”

“Here.” Ronin held out a charcoal writing stick with a black point.

Thomas took the crude instrument and stared at it.

“Justin was clear that we should hide this Book,” William said. “That it is dangerous. We have to come to some kind of agreement on this.”

Thomas paced, Book in one hand, pencil in the other. “And Justin said that the Book only works in the histories—the dream world Kara and I come from. For starters, that confirms the histories are real and can be affected. It also means that the Book should be powerless here.”

If what Thomas was saying was true, the Book's power might be quite incredible. “What would you write?” Mikil asked. “I mean, what limits would there be? Surely we can't just wipe out the virus with a few strokes of the pen.”

Thomas set the Book on the rock. “You're right. I . . . that seems too simple.” The others gathered around, silenced by impossible thoughts.

He looked at the cover again. “
The Story of History.
That means it should be a story, right?”

“As in ‘once upon a time'?” Ronin asked. “You're saying that if you wrote, ‘Once upon a time there was a rabbit,' then a rabbit would appear in your dreams?”

“Too simple,” Mikil said. “And what script should we use?” There was a slight difference between the alphabet used in each reality—the one used here was simpler.

“The script of the histories,” Thomas said.

“What do you want to accomplish in this other reality?” Ronin asked. “Your main goal—what is it?”

“There's a virus that will destroy most of humanity . . . you know, the Raison Strain,” Thomas said. “The one that ushered in the Great Tribulation as recorded in the Books of Histories. Knowledge of the history has become somewhat vague in the fifteen years since Tanis's Crossing, but we all knew it orally once.”

“Yes, of course. The Raison Strain. These were the histories that Tanis was fascinated with.” Ronin looked at Mikil. “You're saying that these histories are . . . now? Real now?”

“Haven't you been listening to me?” William said. “That's what I've been saying. I've said that he's only recalling memories, but he seems to think that these dreams of his are real.”