Ted Dekker - Mortal

The second book in the Books of Mortals series, 2012

IN THE YEAR 2005, geneticists discovered the human gene that controlled both innate and learned forms of fear. It was called Strathmin, or Oncoprotein 18. Within fifteen years, genetic influencers for all primary emotions were similarly identified.

Nearly a decade later, in the wake of a catastrophic war that destroyed much of civilization, humanity vowed to forsake ruinous emotion and serve the way of a new Order. To this end, the first Sovereign unleashed a virus called Legion, which genetically stripped an unsuspecting world of all emotion but one: fear. As humanity forgot hope, love, and joy, it also left behind hatred, malice, and anger. For nearly five hundred years, perfect peace reigned.

But a sect called the Keepers closely guarded the terrible secret that every soul on earth, though in every appearance human, was actually dead. For centuries they tenaciously clung to a single prediction that the viral code introduced by Legion would eventually revert in the blood of a single child. Humanity’s final hope for life would be found in his rise to power. Also passed down among the Keepers: a sealed vial of ancient blood with the power to awaken five souls who would assist him.

In the year 471 a boy named Jonathan was born to a ruling family with true life running through his veins. His existence was kept secret until the day he was discovered by a lowly artisan named Rom Sebastian and four others brought to life by the Keeper’s ancient blood.

Around that time, the powerful alchemist, Pravus, began to hunt the Keepers, while devising a serum to counteract the effect of Legion. But rather than grant life, it returned only the darker emotions with all their ill effects.

According to the Order’s rules of succession, one woman stood before Jonathan in the line of power: heir apparent Feyn Cerelia. Through the intervention of Rom, she tasted life once, albeit briefly-even as her powerful brother, Saric, fell thrall to Pravus’s alchemy and planned to seize Feyn’s throne for himself.

Persuaded of the boy’s power to awaken humanity, Feyn agreed to sacrifice her life and clear the path for Jonathan in exchange for the promise that her body would secretly be kept in stasis, technically dead by law, until the boy took power at the age of eighteen.

She gave her life on the day of her inauguration, and Jonathan’s sovereignty was kept in the interim by his regent, Rowan. Exposed for his malicious plot, Saric vanished and was thought dead.

Surrounded by powerful warriors called Mortals sworn to protect him, Jonathan went into hiding for nine years. He now nears his eighteenth birthday, when he will return to the world capital of Byzantium to claim his rightful place as Sovereign. It is believed by all those who follow him that his blood will return life to the world and usher in a new kingdom.

But Saric is not dead. Even now, he gathers his forces to stand against Jonathan before he can take his seat of power and return life to a dead world.

ROLAND AKARA, Prince of the Nomads and second only to Rom Sebastian among all Mortals, sat unflinching upon his mount, scanning the valley below with the eyes of one who’d seen far too much to be either easily disturbed or easily satisfied. He was a warrior, loved desperately by all who followed him, a leader descended from generations of rulers, a man given to purpose without an ounce of compromise.

And that purpose had never been clearer: to usher in the reign of Jonathan at any cost in utter defiance of death.

On the dark stallion next to his own sat his sister Michael, twenty-seven-younger than Roland by three years. A composite bow was slung across her back in the same manner as his. The long drape of her coat covered the curved sword that rode her hip. They were two Mortals, clad in black, overlooking their kingdom.

But this was not their kingdom. This was a valley of death. It spread out to the west and east, a vast waste only intermittently broken by a patch of twisting scrub. Whatever had once flowed through this dry riverbed had all but poisoned it. Even now, hundreds of years after the wars that had ruined massive stretches of countryside-including the vineyards that had once characterized this region-only the staunchest new growth survived.

Michael spoke in a low voice, jaw tight. “He’s there.” A slight breeze lifted a dark wisp of hair free from the torrent of braids that fell down past her shoulders, each of them tied in darkly colored cords, each of them telling a tale of rank, victory, or conquest so that one might read the entire volume with a glance. Only her brother’s plaits, shot through with feathers, onyx, and lapis beads, were more elaborate.

Roland’s stallion snorted, tugged at the bit, shifting on the rocky cliff. With a twitch of the reins, Roland commanded stillness. The stallion quieted, his black coat quivering once. They had tracked death to this valley, pushing their mounts to the breaking point through the waning night and the better part of the day. No creature had the same acute sense of smell as a Mortal, and they had picked up the scent from a distance.

Death. The smell of Corpse. The scent was common, particularly near the cities and towns in which the world’s millions lived-human in appearance… dead in reality.

But the odor Roland and his ranking second, Michael, had chased through the night was different than the scent of mere Corpse. Deeper. Pungent and metallic. The fragrance of Hades itself. The putrid odor rose from the lone outpost on the crusted valley floor half a mile before them, an affront to every breath they took.

Whatever had seized Maro, that impetuous Nomad who’d taken up with the zealots as of late, was either not a Corpse or a new kind of Corpse altogether.

And that was what Roland needed to know.

There had been rumors. Of a new kind of death gathering to crush Jonathan, the Maker of all Mortals, before his inauguration in nine days. Roland had heard far too many rumors to give them much attention. They were as prevalent as lore of the Maker’s Hand-the mystical involvement of a divine Maker. But Roland had seen no evidence of the angry god of Order that Corpses clamored to appease by following their ludicrous rules.

But now, with the new odor thick in his nostrils, the reality of an opposing force gained credence in the company of several other pungent tells: horses. Four in front of the canteen. Two more out back. Fresh earth churned up by hooves, stale water in the trough. The pine wood of the building itself. Maro. Roland had not smelled his death, which could only mean he was alive.

“How did the scouts miss this?” Roland said.

“It’s beyond our usual perimeter,” Michael said. She studied the valley for a few moments. “Thoughts?”

“Many,” Roland said grimly.

“Any you’d care to share?”

“Only the one that matters.”

“And that is?”

“He lives or we die.”

She nodded. “How then should we help that insolent zealot we call cousin live?”

Roland had gone after Maro after hearing that he’d let his drunken mouth flap about bringing the scalp of a Corpse home to the Seyala Valley, home for the last year to all twelve hundred Mortals awaiting Jonathan’s rule. Michael had caught up to him in the middle of the night and Roland had agreed to her company, expecting no real trouble-other than his annoyance-in retrieving him.

Until they’d found Maro’s horse five miles south of the valley, dead, covered in the new scent of death they’d tracked here.