Lunatic by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online

and beyond. South. He had to go south.
    Silvie pulled him east. "You said it was this way. The pool."
    "That woman ..."
    "There is no woman. There's you and me. Darsal somewhere, and we need to bathe before we turn Scab. I personally can't stand the itchy skin, and the flaking is gross. So come on." She pulled. "Show me the pool."
    "Silvie, wait. What if it's a vision from Elyon? Wouldn't it be wrong to ignore it? My heart says to go."
    That quieted her.
    "Elyon wants you to bathe," she said.
    "But Silvie ..."

    The southern desert. The woman.
    "Johnis." Silvie's sweaty, slender hand pulled him back. East off the path, just like he'd told her earlier.
    "Johnis, we're in the open. We can't stay here."
    He lingered. Silvie was distracting him, cutting off the troubled woman. Every time Silvie spoke, he could no longer hear the beautiful woman in the desert.
    "Your heart is with me. With Elyon. Now come. No more talk of imaginary women."
    She had a point.
    Johnis started to follow. But the draw toward the desert intensified with each step. His feet were heavy and sluggish.
    Aid me, Chosen One. Aid me. . . "
    "We can't stay, Johnis."
    He'd stopped again.
    "I'll admit you'll smell better." Silvie smiled at him. "And I'm all the woman you need, don't you think?"
    South. He had to go south, not east.
    He had to bathe too.
    Why didn't Silvie want to help this woman? The scabbing disease, maybe. No, too soon.
    Johnis nodded. "East it is."
    They went on, but the siren song wouldn't leave.
    I await you, johnisss .. .

hat cause did you have to torture them, Priest?" Marak demanded.
    "We needed information out of the boy. I merely did the nasty business of interrogating your little brother for you." Sucrow's slate-gray eyes, covered in a milky film, drilled Marak with a hard stare. A bony finger with a massive brass-and-gold ring jabbed toward his face. The gaudy snakelike bangles that adorned the dark priest's arms jingled at the movement.
    They stood at the bottom of the steps of Qurong's palace, now with its own private sanctuary built onto the northwest side, directly across the lake from Sucrow's thrall.
    The step gave way to a hard-packed dirt road that spanned wide enough for four horses to walk abreast, and it split in three forks: one north, one south, and one toward the bridge.

    Sucrow jeered. Fingered the serpent pendant around his neck. "You know, sometimes I think you care more about the albino than you care about our cause. Maybe you should have been betrothed to him."
    The knot in Marak's chest tightened.
    "She moans like a coward when we bleed her. And whenever Teeleh comes she screams. She knows well the tickle of his claws. Didn't baby brother tell you, General?"
    Marak snugged the hilt of his sword in his right palm, in part as a message to the white-faced priest, in part because he wished to use it.
    The priest cackled. "Now that will serve you well: a dead priest to go alongside all your other failures. Besides, I don't think Qurong will appreciate you killing your superior. Treasonous, don't you think?"
    He turned his back on the priest. "Get out of my sight."
    "Your family's turned into the enemy, General."
    Marak marched away from Sucrow before he could decide to follow through on his impulse to take the man's head off.
    Three subordinates waited for Marak, all save one were on horseback. The last offered Marak the reins to his own mount.
    Marak accepted. "Go interrogate her. We'll find the other two. Then tell the commanders to meet me at the lake an hour before first light. We'll ride at dawn. Anyone who's late will face penalties."
    The men obeyed. Marak went for the atrium. He glimpsed Cassak, his captain, headed from the interrogation chambers.

    Where Warryn was torturing his brother.
    The captain was almost past him. Marak had to know.
    He caught his friend's arm. "What's the word?"
    Cassak stopped. Marak saw the scroll in the captain's hand and tore it from him. He skimmed.
    "Cassak ... tell