The Keeper: A Short Story Prequel to Forbidden by Ted Dekker, Tosca Lee Page A

attention…”
    The stranger was staring at them, watching them carefully.
    “Yes? Go on,” Gustov said after a moment.
    “It was her leg. It was badly broken, you see. Her bone had snapped in half and torn jagged through her flesh. Her leg was bent at a terrible angle so that her heel was up by her shoulder.”
    “God have mercy,” Gustov said. It was the appropriate thing to say in such a case.
    “It wasn’t only her leg that drew my attention,” Talus said. “One of her hands was missing. It appeared to have been torn off by a wild animal.”
    “God have mercy,” Gustov murmured again. But Pavel could only stare at the strange unrest in the man’s eyes. They shone in the firelight, misted, fixed.
    “Tell me. What do you feel when I tell you this story?” Talus said.
    “What any decent man would feel at the hearing of such a tragedy. Terrible fear!”
    “Fear, and yet you do not weep. Doesn’t it break the heart, what I’ve told you?”
    This time it was Pavel who answered, picking his words carefully. “Yes, in a matter of speaking. But our concern, of course, is for her destiny.”
    “And what of her suffering in
this
life?”
    For several long seconds none of them spoke. Talus stared between them both and Pavel felt as though he might have missed something.
    “Her fate is settled, my friend,” he said, trying again to make him understand. “There’s no place for wondering how or why she met it or in tangling our own paths with other concerns.”
    “Other emotions, you mean.”
    So he did understand. “Yes. We have renounced emotion to follow a more perfect way—one cleansed of the sentiments that inevitably push mankind to ruin. These are the teachings of Sirin, that chaos follows when the weaker sentiments rule, as demonstrated by the great wars that drove us to these wastelands. Surely you know of them.”
    “Of course,” Talus said.
    “Then you also know that Sirin rose up in the aftermath of those wars and taught a new way. A new Order for humanity. We are followers of Sirin and of his Order. We have dedicated our lives to it.”
    “So you are telling me that you feel nothing else. No sorrow. No empathy.”
    “No,” his brother replied. “And it is our prayer that we never do.”
    The stranger’s eyes lingered on them for a few seconds before he lowered his gaze to the fire, looking suddenly exhausted. Pavel glanced at his brother, not sure what to do or say.
    “Don’t be afraid of what we tell you,” Pavel said, trying again. “Sirin teaches—”
    “Taught,” Talus said, eye darting up.
    “Pardon?”
    “Taught. Past tense. Sirin no longer teaches.”
    “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…”
    The man reached for something in his vest. For an instant, Pavel wondered if it would be a knife or a weapon, and if indeed he meant them harm. But he pulled out an old newspaper, brittle and yellow around the edges.
    “Haven’t you heard?” he said, holding up the headline:

S IRIN A SSASSINATED
    Pavel sat back, fear filling him like an icy current. Gustov stared with bulging eyes.
    “Do you even know what year it is?” Talus asked.
    Pavel’s mind was racing. Gustov looked at him with wild eyes.
    “It’s…” Pavel quickly tried to add it up. “It must be…I’m not entirely—”
    “It is Year Two,” Talus said.
    “
Two
?”
    “With Sirin’s passing a new calendar was set. It is two years since Sirin’s assassination. His successor, a man named Megas, has taken those teachings of your beloved master Sirin and twisted them into something darker than any fear you knew before. Do you think you have schooled your emotion so well that you feel no hope? No sorrow? No happiness or anger? I’m telling you that you don’t feel them because you are dead, and not by your choosing.”
    “This is madness!” Gustov said, hands on his head.
    “Yes. It is.” Talus dropped the newspaper clipping to the ground and reached into his tunic again. “I should know.” He withdrew