Ted Dekker - Mortal

The girl in the cart.

But how did Jonathan dare risk the future of Mortals? Surely he realized how shortsighted he was being to bring one Corpse back to life!

Could he still bring a Corpse to life?

He had effectively multiplied his blood by bringing the twelve hundred Mortals to life-perhaps that had been the intent all along.

No. The world needed its Sovereign. He was meant to rule. He must rule.

But first, he must live.

“That’s long enough,” Rom said, striding to grab his horse’s reins. Triphon shook his head, but did likewise.

Thirty seconds later, they were riding hard again.

“To turn yourself in,” the guard said, looking from Jonathan to Jordin.

“Yes,” Jonathan said. “The paperwork should be coming. We volunteered to come immediately out of obedience. For the hope of Bliss. But if you could take us inside now…”

He wasn’t adept at lying-he had never had to be.

Neither had she.

Jordin looked away, fearing that he would see in her the impulse to slice open his throat if he so much as laid a hand on Jonathan. Which she would.

He was frowning at Jonathan’s braids again as one who frowns while trying to remember the words to a song, not quite there, but on the tip of the tongue.

“You must be from the west side of the city.”

“Yes. The west. Our parents are… artisans.”

“Sumerian then. You’re not wearing your amulet.”

“We took them off already, to leave with our families. In remembrance of us.”

“What’s wrong with you that they’ve sent you here?”

Her gaze flicked to Jonathan whose attention had drifted from the man to the yard through the gate. Beyond, two rows of long buildings with small, industrial-sized windows-none of them open-ran all the way to the back perimeter. There were perhaps thirty of them in all.

“I’ll make a call,” the guard was saying. “It’s not every day we get volunteers.”

“No,” Jordin said, her attention snapping back to him. “He was born with a crippled leg. He’s fine now, but he hid it for so long, he’s concerned about-about Bliss. About his status with the Maker. We attended basilica together. We confessed to the priest and he advised us…” Was she even getting any of this right? It wasn’t like she’d ever attended basilica in her life.

“And you?”

“I…” She remembered then, a story she had heard once, about Rom’s lover, the first martyr. “I spilled lantern oil on myself two years ago. I hid it-from everyone. Under these clothes, I’m completely scarred. I’m supposed to be married…” Her gaze drifted to Jonathan, but he was lost to them both. “And the secret will come out soon. I can’t bear it. I’m tired of hiding. I want to be right… with the Maker.”

She realized belatedly that she wasn’t sure what she would do if he demanded to see evidence.

The guard grunted. His gaze was tinged with every indication that he would be finished with them both as quickly as possible. Association with the damaged and the imperfect was not a thing anyone craved-even a guard doing his job.

“Suit yourselves. You’ve obeyed the statutes-and for that you may find Bliss.” He said it as one who has spoken the same words many times, words without meaning except to those who heard them.

“We understand.”

“Sign.” He tapped an opened ledger across the top of which was inscribed its title: The Book of Passing .

Jordin suppressed a shudder, her mind skipping to the Book of Mortals on the altar of the inner sanctum. It seemed profane for her name to be inscribed anywhere else.

Jonathan was staring at the smoke rising from the stack, oblivious to them. The guard noted his stare and frowned.

“What did you expect, boy? People are sent here to die. Most are terminal anyway, but you know that. As soon as your paperwork’s processed, we’ll release permission for your funerals, but as far as the Order’s concerned, you’re already dead. Get used to it. Sign.”

So… It was true, the stories. Jordin took the pen and scrawled Tara Shubin in the ledger, the first name that popped into her head.

“How long does it take to die here?” Jonathan asked.

The guard shrugged. “We don’t have the resources to support you for that long. It isn’t fair to the living to be taxed on behalf of supporting the dead. Everyone here has a one-year limit.”

One year?

The guard tapped the book and handed the pen to Jonathan who absently took it and wrote his true name: “Jonathan Talus.”

Jordin glanced sidelong through the iron gate. Here and there a few forms moved about on concrete pathways between buildings. They walked with the posture of those who had nothing to offer, of those unacceptable by Order’s standards, who might find acceptance only in their resignation of what little life they had, and the hope that obedience might earn a better hereafter.

What kind of Order could so twist the minds of its faithful to live in death?

“Your horses will be sent to the Citadel stables or the butchers. Anything you have of value will be put toward the considerable expense of the Center.”

She nodded, but her attention had gone to Jonathan, who had stepped up to the gate to grasp it by two iron bars.

“Anything of value?”

“No,” Jordin whispered. Nothing but the knife in her boot. A weapon no Corpse would be caught dead with, so to speak.

He was looking her over with clinical appraisal. “You’ll be issued new clothing as you need it. Our counselor isn’t on duty-we weren’t expecting any new arrivals. I’ll take you back to your housing and you’ll have to get your instructions on showers and food from her later.”

Jonathan stood unmoving, staring through the bars.

“Each dorm is opened for one hour of each day. Unit Five is open now.” He glanced at his watch. “In fifteen minutes they go back and Six opens for an hour. You’ll learn the rules.”

She gave a mute nod.

“There’s no priest here. No basilica. Your last service will be your funeral. They’ll pray for you there. You’ll find a copy of the Book of Orders in your housing unit.”

Jordin felt ill.

“Stand back.”

Jonathan stumbled back as the guard lifted the heavy key ring from his belt, fitting the largest one into the gate’s heavy lock.

“Welcome to the gateway, if you’re fortunate, to Bliss.”

Bliss?

She peered at the rows of concrete buildings through the opening grate. The figures milling about outside of them, a few of them staring at the new arrivals at the gate, some of them from grimy dormitory windows. All of them waiting to die.

This then, was the desire of the Order’s Maker?

The gate swung wide as pale gray smoke wafted from the smokestack toward the restless heavens.

The condemned peered at her as though she were an apparition. A thing not from their realm, as though a part of them had already passed from this life into the next, and only waited for their bodies to catch up.

The guard stood aside, avoiding touching either one of them, she noted, as though death were a catching disease.

Move. But something within her balked at the thought of this place. Of setting foot on the cracked concrete walk that extended out from the gate, down between the rows of buildings. The Authority of Passing offended every sensibility within her as a Nomad. Its confinement, the view of nothing but the insides of those twenty-foot walls, the three-story round tower that was their only exit out-it all reeked of a living death. Of Corpse.

Move.

She stood rooted to the spot until Jonathan stepped forward. He walked past the guard and into the compound. The Giver of Life… standing in the place of death.