The Book of Things to Come (Hand of Adonai Series 1) Read online

  Ribillius kissed her head, and she wished he’d never leave her, wished she could stay here with him, wished she could have a father again. But, in her infinite stupidity, she’d created a situation that forced her away from her father. Her presence at the castle endangered too many people. It endangered her father.

  Chapter Four

  In those days, the monks who honored Adonai were gifted with a portion of His power. With His power, they healed humanity, shielded them from the onslaught of the elves, summoned angels to aid in the battle for Alrujah. In all of this, they honored Adonai, and pleased Him.

  —The Book of the Ancients

  BY NOW, OLIVER SHOULD have been awake, so why wasn’t he? The dream persisted unrelentingly, and, no matter how much he enjoyed riding a horse, the weightlessness and speed, the rhythmic stamping of hooves, the cold air pressing his cheeks, each passing moment made him a little more uneasy.

  What if, despite all logic and reason, the whole scenario was real?

  The cold of the leather saddle between his legs numbed his thighs. The chill of the pommel nearly froze his hand. Alrujah confirmed its reality through all five of his senses. His dreams were never this vivid, never this ordered or this real.

  Beautiful Alrujah brimmed with danger. He had no doubts he could live here happily for some time, but only if he could avoid being ripped apart by ravenous monsters.

  His mind broke in again, protested his assumption of reality. This simply couldn’t be real. He wouldn’t give in to childish fantasies of being swept into distant kingdoms to fight dragons, not like Lauren. Sure, he loved the game with his whole heart, but he understood what was real and what wasn’t. At least, until now, he thought he had.

  Oliver was a man of numbers and data. But being pulled into some strange fantasy land was exactly the kind of thing Vicmorn the monk would accept on faith. And with each steaming breath of the steed beneath him, Oliver felt more like Vicmorn, who would assume Adonai had supernaturally placed him in a position to be active in His will. If Adonai could do that, then couldn’t God? Of course He could, but would He?

  The black-barked harspus trees thinned and gave way to flat grasslands on either side of the winding Fellian River. The messenger, who rode ahead of him, pulled back on his reins and his black horse halted past the tree line. He took his oversized helmet off and set it on his pommel. A tangle of brown hair hung over his ears. The horse neighed and shied back a step.

  It was just Oliver’s luck to finally get Erica’s attention and wake up in some alternate reality. “Yeah, I know we were supposed to meet at the computer lab after school again, but I kind of fell into the game I created, and I was too busy running around pretending to be a martial-arts monk and trying to find a way to get back to reality to make it by three o’clock. Want to go to prom this spring?”

  Under the dark clouds, the gray waters of the Fellian River rushed through the cavern it carved for itself like nar’esh poison through a vein. The two dominant towers of Castle Alrujah loomed through the fog hanging beyond the river. They stretched toward the soft glow of the suns. From this distance, they looked like two lower case i’s. “Why are we stopping?” Until then, they had ridden the horses hard. When the king demanded an urgent reply, things happened quickly. He’d sent his two fastest horses and his fastest rider. Clumsy as he was, the boy could ride. Oliver hardly kept pace.

  The messenger pointed downstream. He struggled to keep his arm up under the weight of the polished steel. “The river beast.”

  Downstream, a blue scaly head split the silvery water. Its jaw hung agape. Thousands of sharp, jagged teeth, stained red with blood, lined its maw. Oliver had nearly forgotten this part of the script. The serpentine neck stretched backward in the shape of an S.

  The messenger spoke with the reedy voice of a child. “If we stay far enough back, it should leave us alone. But if we approach the river now, it may anger him.”

  “He won’t come down this far.”

  “How can you be sure, Brother Vicmorn?”

  Technically, the messenger should call Oliver “Father.” It was his new rightful title. The passage of the amulet to him signified an elevation in rank among the Monks of the Cerulean Order. But this was not the time or place to correct the young man. “Trust me.” He slipped a hand under the collar of his robe and ran a finger over the golden amulet his father had given him. The ancient prayer amulet had been handed down from Adonai himself, so the story went. It granted the wearer, according to the lines of code he’d compiled last night, special powers of prayers, prayers uttered in the midst of battle and at times of need, which pretty much covered the rest of the game.

  The messenger licked his lips. “We should wait and make sure the beast turns back.”

  Oliver shook his head and pulled the hood of his robe over his head to keep his ears out of the wind. “Do you wish to tell the king why we’re late?”

  The messenger looked from the bluish beast to Oliver, as if weighing which option would be more terrifying—facing the wrath of the river beast or the anger of King Ribillius.

  Oliver closed his eyes, hand on his amulet, and said a silent prayer in a language he hardly recognized. As foreign as the words sounded, Oliver strangely understood them.

  The Ancient Language. He remembered meticulously coding the bizarre language Lauren created and copied down in her notebook. Why she’d insisted on an alternate language boggled his mind, but he’d went with her on it. He feared she might pull up stakes if he refused.

  The beast craned its neck up, and finally, turned away from them and moved off.

  Oliver positioned his horse next to the messenger’s. “In time, you’ll learn the courage of Jaurru.”

  “I doubt anyone is as courageous as him,” the messenger said, though his face split with a hopeful grin.

  The horses clopped across the rickety bridge spanning the rushing waters of the Fellian River. An angry chill tinged the air over the waters, bit at the skin on his face. They moved swiftly, but cautiously. The river beast buried its head beneath the waters. The shadow of the massive beast moved away from the bridge, exactly as Oliver had prayed it would.

  At this point in the game, the point of view should have switched over to Jaurru, but it didn’t. For a second, Oliver half expected to wake up in Jaurru’s body and play that part. But he didn’t. He rode his horse toward Alrujah and to the castle within its walls. Further evidence that this must be a dream.

  Or, it might be a residual code. For Vicmorn to get from this location to the castle, he would have to travel. The computer must have filled in the gap in the coding. He’d designed it to do exactly that—to reason, to make ends meet. Not to put too fine a point on it, the game’s artificial intelligence, which he’d designed, was the most complex reasoning computer script available. He’d designed the feature to allow for maximum individuality for the player. Here, though, his heart beat a little faster. No counting on the script to guide him. With AI governing the game, anything could happen.

  * * *

  Among the items in the chest in her room, Lauren found a white-hilted dagger in a white sheath and a hooded white fur-lined cape. She draped a white fur belt over one shoulder and under her arm so the hilt of the dagger rested on her left side above her hip. Theoretically, the cape should increase the strength of her spells by five percent. Strangely, once the cape draped over her shoulders, strength ran through her, as if she’d taken a deep breath of cold air—a crispness in her blood, an awareness of the environment around her. Or had she mistaken her relief as strength? Relief to have something over her thin dress, something over her beautifully round shoulders, to keep the chill off her slender neck?

  She fastened the cape under her neck. It stretched down to her calves. She pulled it around herself, admired the gold trim along the edges and the midnight sapphire clasp.

  The chill of the snow fluttering in through the window and the depth of the purple feathers of the bird staring at her suggested reality. Her
initial surprise and shock thawed with the rising of the twin suns. The room, the suns, the bird, and snow were as normal as a hardboiled egg for breakfast.

  Her father’s raspy voice dripped with genuine love. She hadn’t heard anything like it in a long time. More alarmingly, she loved him, too. She shouldn’t. He wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. None of this was.

  But it had to be. All of it.

  Before she opened her door, she took a deep breath. She knew what would happen next. She would maneuver down the stairs of the castle, navigate the halls until she came to the throne room. By the time she arrived, Vicmorn would already be standing in front of her father. He’d be tall like Oliver, but stronger, and he’d be wearing the heavy blue robe of the Monks of the Cerulean Order. Within the hour, she’d leave the castle and travel to Varuth for the night.

  This must be what it would be like to wake up from a coma. You open your eyes and everything is different. Everyone has changed and you don’t remember anything. Everything is new and exciting, familiar and terrifying.

  If she had to wander Alrujah with nothing but the cape on her back and the dagger on her side, it would be good to do it with a friend. Or, at least, someone that was supposed to be a friend. And, if things played out the way they should, Ribillius would send Jaurru, the King’s Guard, and her father’s most trusted man, with her. Lauren had designed Jaurru to resemble Aiden in nearly every way, from his curly sandy-blond hair to his slightly crooked teeth. He would come to love her, or to love Indigo. Either way would be fine with her.

  The more she thought about it, the lighter she felt—too light. She looked down, bending her slender neck, to see her feet floating inches above the slick stone. “Well, that’s just perfect,” she said. She sighed, opened the door, and pulled herself along the wall. If she pointed her toes down, the tips of her white fur boots hovered only a half-inch above the ground. Unless someone looked closely, they might not notice.

  She thought of weights, of barbells and medicine balls and boulders. She thought of herself in North Chester, of Sarah the Skeleton’s text. If I wuz as fat as u Id kill myself.

  Her toes touched the ground. The relief it brought didn’t do much to ease the poisonous memory of Sarah and all her dreary soulless clones.

  She moved down the stairs, insecurity heavy on her shoulders again.

  Soldiers in polished steel packed the windowless, torch-lit room, all with swords drawn and held in the air toward the king. Each knelt with his head bowed. Lauren had drawn this scene in her journal years ago, but experiencing it made her breath catch in her throat. A man in a blue robe stood in front of the crowd. He alone refused to kneel, and her father looked furious.

  “I bow for no one but Adonai,” the man in blue said.

  Vicmorn’s line. Penned by Oliver. Lauren had thought this entire exchange was a stupid idea, but Oliver insisted, so it stayed in. Collaboration required give and take. Sometimes Oliver took more than he gave, at least in the context of Alrujah. And why shouldn’t he? He did all the computer work. She only wrote the story and did the sketches.

  Vicmorn’s voice sounded like Oliver’s. No surprise. He was tall and lanky like him, too.

  “You will bow to me, Brother Vicmorn. Your father had no trouble acknowledging my reign. Why this sudden betrayal? Why this treason? I send for you to petition Adonai on my behalf, and you come at me with insults?”

  Showtime. She rushed to Vicmorn’s side, bowed to Ribillius, and said, “Father, forgive him. His refusal to bow is not an act of treason, but one of dedication to Adonai. Who better to petition our God than one who is wholly committed to Him?”

  When he looked at her, Ribillius’s anger melted from his face, replaced instead by worry and concern. “Forgive me, my precious daughter. You are right. My concern is only for your safety.”

  “What is your prayer, my lord the king?” Vicmorn asked.

  Ribillius stood from the throne and took Lauren by the hand. He turned her to face Vicmorn. “For my daughter’s safety.”

  “And this,” Vicmorn said with a nod toward Indigo, “is your daughter?”

  “It is.”

  Vicmorn stared at her, angry or confused. “I sense you are in danger. I sense you wish to journey far away from Alrujah.”

  Her face fell. For the second time in less than an hour, two primary characters broke away from the script. Had Oliver changed these details without mentioning it to her? No, he wouldn’t be that selfish. But no other option presented itself, unless …

  He couldn’t be. She mouthed the word, “Oliver?”

  Vicmorn whispered, “Aye, Lady Lauren.”

  The heat drained from her face, and her fair skin ran white as paper. Were they both part of the same dream, or was this a simple twist in her dream, another wrinkle to further unsettle her?

  Vicmorn knelt quickly, as the script called for, put a hand on the prayer amulet, and closed his eyes. He began speaking in a different language, one Lauren didn’t understand. She wondered if Oliver had actually learned the language she’d made up, or if he mumbled for show.

  When he finished mumbling incoherent nonsense, he stood again. “I’ve petitioned Adonai on your behalf. He warns of imminent danger. He promises safety for your daughter, but not here. His plans for her lie elsewhere.”

  The king bowed his head, crushed. “Where?”

  “Where does not matter. Only when. She must leave immediately. I am to accompany her.”

  Ribillius asked, “You?”

  “And with me, the favor of Adonai.”

  The king nodded. “So be it. In addition, Jaurru shall accompany you both.” At these words, the soldiers, who had been kneeling, blades outstretched, all stood and replaced their swords in their sheaths. They moved as one, and the thunderous metallic clapping of their clanging armor shook the room.

  “Jaurru,” Ribillius shouted.

  No answer.

  Vicmorn looked at Lauren, who shrugged.

  The king stood. “Jaurru!” he bellowed.

  Still nothing.

  If this weren’t a dream, and if she and Oliver had been pulled into the game, could Aiden have been pulled in as well? If he had, he’d be more lost than her.

  Chapter Five

  In those days, men defended themselves with weapons forged of steel and iron. They cried out to Adonai, and Adonai heard them. He delivered them from the slavery of the Otherlanders and brought them back to Alrujah and raised up the Dragon’s Back Mountains to defend the land from those who seek irresponsible power.

  —The Book of the Ancients

  BAILEY RENEE SLUNG HER backpack over her shoulder and made her way to Lauren’s room. She’d better be up. If she overslept again, Bailey Renee would kill her. She hated always running late to school. The tip of the sun inched over the mountains. The yellow of it looked like a yolk, while the whites of the sunrise egg spread out over the jagged tips of the distant Sawtooth Mountains. She flipped on the hall light and knocked on Lauren’s door. “You better be up,” she said.

  But Lauren didn’t say anything. Normally, by now, she’d have heard her groaning and kicking her covers off, or else she’d chastise her for being rude and immature or whatever. But she always said something. Now, the only noise was the slight thrumming of the overhead ceiling fan as it woke up and ran a few slow laps around the central hall light.

  “Are you still pouting?” She shifted her backpack from her right shoulder to her left. Her calculus and biology books felt like they’d been printed on stone or lead. She didn’t particularly like her schedule—school in the morning, basketball in the afternoon, homework until bed—but it would all pay off senior year. She hadn’t worked this hard to get lazy and throw away her dreams of being valedictorian and earning a full ride to Stanford.

  Stanford sounded good right about now. Sunny California never dipped under seventy degrees. Did it even snow in California? It must, somewhere. But when she thought of the state, she imagined beaches, crazy college towns, friends laug
hing while hiking in the middle of winter through thickly wooded passes near the bay.

  She checked her watch. If they were going to be on time, they’d need to be out the door in twenty minutes. “Get up, Lauren. If you’re going to get ready, you have to do it now. Don’t make me ride the bus again. You know how much I hate riding the bus.”

  She tested the knob. Locked.

  Hadn’t Mom said not to lock doors? Lauren would be in some seriously hot water when Mom heard about this. If she didn’t fix her attitude, she’d find herself on some shrink’s couch by the afternoon. “Lauren, come on! Stop being such a drama queen. Let’s go.”

  The ceiling fan thrummed rhythmically. The motor whined.

  She really hated the bus.

  Bailey Renee pounded on the door. “Seriously! Get up!”

  No wonder Lauren didn’t have a boyfriend. No one liked unceasing pity-parties. Bailey Renee wished Lauren would, for once, get over herself and accept reality. Who cared how much she weighed? She’d have a lot more friends if she had more confidence.

  Bailey sighed heavy enough for Lauren to hear through the door. “Fine. I get it. You don’t want to take me to school. Whatever. I’ll ride the bus. I’ll give you your space. But don’t forget to pick me up after practice, okay? Franky can’t give me a ride today.”

  Nothing.

  “I won’t tell Mom you didn’t give me a ride in, okay? I get that you’re still mad. But if you don’t pick me up, I’ll have to call Mom to get me, and you know how mad she’ll be. I’m serious.”

  Nothing.

  Bailey Renee shook her head. In a high, mocking voice, she whispered, “Drama.”

  * * *

  Oliver tucked the golden prayer amulet under his robe and slid one hand into the sleeve of the opposite arm. He gripped each of his elbows. His arms fit easily in the loose blue cotton sleeves.

  Ribillius’s crown slid forward on his head. He looked past Oliver toward the rear pillar and gestured with a quick wave of his hand. A lightly armored soldier stepped forward. Unlike the other steel-clad knights, he wore light chainmail, a shirt bearing the crest of Alrujah—a Razorbeak with its head tilted toward the western sun, purple wings pointing to both suns, which were little more than two white circles on either side of the crest—greaves, and no helmet. He kept his black hair shorn short, close to his scalp. Instead of a sword on his back, he wore several daggers on his belt, one for any occasion. Most of the blades were only a few inches. One looked closer to a foot. Any bigger and it’d be a short sword.