Then, the memories of Iscariot faded away from Shaul, and he returned to the darkness. He could hear the voices of his men around him. He felt his body being carried away to safety.
“Captain Shaul!” one of his men called.
Shaul groaned.
There was no longer any pain in his eyes. To his surprise, he could see a little, but it was still unclear. Hadn't his eyes been destroyed? Shaul tried moving his arms, and found that he could move them too.
“We will take care of you Captain Shaul,” another called.
“I am fine,” Captain Shaul said.
“What happened to the demon?” Shaul asked. “Did we catch the other three?”
“The demon who wounded you,” a soldier answered, hesitating, “I'm afraid he escaped.”
Shaul, for some reason, felt relieved at that news. He had a different understanding now about the entire situation. As they headed back to the camp, however, Shaul wondered how he should proceed from here on. He doubted if any of the others would understand what he was about to do.
“We sent some of our soldiers after him,” the soldier explained. “We may not be able to bring the demon down now, but if we follow him, we can keep sending reinforcements. Sooner or later our forces will overpower him.”
“No,” Shaul said firmly, “call all the men back. All of us will head to the camp.”
“But...” the soldier protested.
“We cannot lose any more men,” Shaul said, wondering how to explain it to the soldier without raising suspicions. “that demon is too strong for us to handle. We will need the help of the Black Guards to capture the demon.” Although Shaul had no plans to call the Black Guards, he hoped it would stop the soldier from asking more questions. “And besides, we have the demon's friends. The best way is not to chase it, but to let it come to us.”
Was that enough?
“I see,” the soldier said, “it is as you say, we will only lose more men and waste their lives. But if we let the demon come to us, we will be more prepared. Excellent choice Captain, I'm sorry for second guessing your plan.”
“Do not worry,” Captain Shaul said, “yours was a good plan, it will also work. But for now, we focus on regrouping. With the loss of our Vice-Captain, and with me out of commission, we need to restore proper order.”
“Yes sir!” the soldier said.
Captain Shaul let out a deep sigh of relief.
Shaul had not only seen a few scenes of memory of Iscariot and the Master, Shaul had seen everything. It was as if the entire life of Judas Iscariot and the Master was laid bare in front of him. From that, he realized it was he who had misjudged them.
All that he fought for, was wrong.
But it would take some time before the messengers would reach his soldiers, who were now chasing after Iscariot. Iscariot would have to find a way to escape by himself, or at least buy time until the soldiers stopped the pursuit.
In the meantime, how should he help the other three escape?
Chapter 12 – The Backlash
Judas shuddered.
Memories flooded him, but they were not his own memories. They were the memories of the man called Shaul the Persecutor.
He did not understand how it happened, or why, but it probably had something to do with the sword. Nacash, the Serpent Dragon, had mentioned that the sword was different, because when mixed with the blood of Judas, it became the Spirit of Truth. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Judas drank from the Cup, which contained the Master's own blood?
But the Spirit of Truth was not gentle.
Judas watched helplessly, as Shaul's own hands drove in nails which were more than a handspan long.
Judas listened, as Shaul spoke the final verdict, killing hundreds, no, thousands of those of followed his Master.
Families were torn apart, even the children, and the women, and the old, none were spared.
He heard Shaul's laugh of victory. The laugh of a madman. The laugh of a fanatic who only saw his own righteousness, but consumed the lives of others who did not believe the same way that he did.
Judas felt sick inside.
We need to go, Nacash thought to him. I am not certain what will happen if you continue to use the Spirit of Truth. Can your body handle it? Can your soul handle it? We need to escape while you still have strength.
There was nothing he could do for Arcana and Varak now. He could no longer fight. There were hundreds of the Inquisitors, and fighting their leader had taken all his strength.
Judas ran.
Many of the soldiers watched him go, but a few followed him. They did not seem to intend to fight him, but only to tail him.
I will give your legs a boost, Nacash said, it will last for a while, but if you slow down they will eventually catch up to you.
As he ran, he heard the screams of the innocent as they were tortured in his head. How pleasant those must have felt for Shaul the Persecutioner! The Inquisitor would spend long hours listening as his victims were tortured. And even after days of suffering, there would be no mercy. The voting would come, and Shaul, and the other officers would decide to end the lives of the innocent.
“We don't have time to decide who is right and who is wrong,” Shaul had said, “There are so many of them. Kill them all, and let the Creator decide who belongs to him and who doesn't.”
Judas felt fury, at the same time, he was crying for all the people who had suffered.
But strangely, Judas could not hate Shaul... Judas saw the entire life of Shaul, all his memories, from childhood to growing up, to the twisted man he had become now.
Judas cringed, at the society that failed to protect Shaul when he was a child. Judas wailed, as he saw the memory of Shaul's father and mother being taken away by soldiers, and as they were hacked to death in front of him, he saw the faces of their neighbors who did not stand up for them.
He saw Shaul's brothers and sisters, dying one by one, in hunger, in disease, and no one helping. What greater was evil was there than when society watched the children suffer, but society did nothing?
While Judas cried for Shaul's victims, Judas also cried for Shaul. Judas cried even for the society that had forsaken Shaul. What had society experience, that it had become what it was now?
It was painful, but Judas understood.
He was no longer Judas, but he had become Shaul, because he now possessed all the memories of Shaul, even Shaul's rationale, his thinking, his judgment, everything.
Judas cried as he ran.
Behind him, soldiers, and even villagers followed. The villagers had not seen the battle up close, so they did not have the same fear of him as the soldier's who saw him defeat their Captain did.
“Hey I recognize that man!” Another villager said. The man looked familiar, but Judas had met many people and couldn’t recall who this person was in particular. Judas pushed past the man and ran.
“That was Judas Iscariot, The Betrayer!” The villager yelled to the others. “There's a big bounty on his head!” More villagers came after him.
After what seemed like hours of running, he stopped, too tired to run. With the help of Nacash, he had outdistanced many of them. Judas decided this was a good place to rest. But before resting, he decided to do one last thing.
He went aside and dug the ground, using the tip of the sword to soften the soil. After a while of digging, he was satisfied, and put Arcana’s sacred knife there, then as an added measure, he took off the amulet that she gave him and put it there with the small blade. If his pursuers caught him, they might use the amulet to track her even if she managed to escape later.
The other plus of putting the amulet here, was that Arcana would be able to find the sacred blade even without Judas. If she could track the amulet, she will know where the sacred blade was hidden. He put some dirt on top of what he dug, stamped on it, and covered it with some dry leaves and branches. Then he did the same pattern around the area, so that it wouldn't appear too unnatural.
/> Then he walked a distance away, and found a spot to rest. As he sat down, the sword began to disintegrate. Though Judas felt too tired to even worry about it.
It was a cold night, and he had no fire or blankets to keep himself warm. Judas didn’t notice that he had fallen asleep.
When he woke up, he heard the distant sound of people talking over the hill. He needed to hide, and fast. As luck would have it, they had not seen him yet. He still had some time. He looked around for a place to hide, but he realized the trees were far apart.
Last night, while he was tired from running, he had not realized that the forest had grown sparse, and he was not thinking straight enough to find a good hiding place. He had assumed his pursuers were too far behind and had lost his trail. But of course, they would have trackers. While Judas slept, they kept looking for him, closing the distance.
He had to run! He heard his pursuers getting closer. He tried to stand, but his legs wobbled and barely held him up. He panicked. Then he noticed something on the ground.
Nacash? Judas thought. Where are you? I need your help!
But there was no answer. He tried peeling open his hand to let the golden scales come out from his wound, but the wound had closed. Had he used up all that power?
The sword he carried last night had also vanished, disintegrating in his own hands, leaving a black char-like substance behind.
He looked down on the ground, trying to pick up the black substance, hoping it would form into a sword once more. But there was nothing.
Then, just ahead of him, he noticed something.
It was a rope.
Chapter 13 - The Death Of Judas Iscariot
He sighed in dismay. Of all the things that heaven could have given him, and he got a rope.
What would he do with a rope?
Maybe if it were a staff, a sword, or a knife it would have been useful for fending off attackers. If only he had a weapon...
But wait, he did have a knife, he had Arcana’s knife, only he had buried it under the ground and there was no time to go and get it. It was too far. He knew how to get there, but he did not have the strength to run the distance, while his pursuers were probably fresher.
He wondered if he could use the Zohar's power the same way that Arcana did, but that was highly doubtful. He looked at the rope again. Behind him there was a tree, but while he could probably hide behind it, it wasn’t thick enough to hide him effectively.
The situation seemed hopeless. He could no longer run, and he had nothing to fight with. As desperation crept in, he played with the thought that maybe he should just give up.
After all the troubles that he had survived, was this how it would all end?
Suddenly, Judas felt a sense of peace, the kind that came when one realized that there was no need to struggle anymore. He accepted his fate. If his pursuers caught him, they would probably stone him to death, or worse, torture him, and maybe even crucify him too. A second time.
There was no way out. He had to accept it. He could no longer run—at least not for a long distance—while his pursuers were fresh and more rested than he was.
He looked up to the sky. What a beautiful sight. If his own death were up to him at all, he wished he would die in his sleep, painless, oblivious of death taking him. Or if not, maybe a swift, clean death would do.
Of course, how he would die would no longer be up to him. His pursuers would decide that, and they would probably pick the worst possible death for him. He looked at the ground again.
Then he had an idea.
Maybe he did have a choice. If he was going to die anyway, why not die by a method of his own choosing?
The madness of Shaul must have affected Judas to the point that he had gone mad too.
He grabbed the rope on the ground, bit it, then started climbing up the tree. His arms and legs protested, it took all the strength and willpower he had left. He probably tore all his arm muscles there so that by now both his arms and legs were practically useless. He hugged a thick branch and crawled his way to the middle of it. The branch wobbled, but somehow it held.
While the tree barely had any leaves left so that it was not a good place to hide, it was perfect for his purpose. He tied the rope around his neck, then the other end of it to a thick branch.
At least it would be fast, he would not suffer a lot.
He hoped.
But as Judas was ready to end his life by his own hands, at the last moment, he hesitated. There had to be another way.
Then Judas had an idea. It was a mad idea, but it could work. There might be away to survive this after all.
Judas pulled the rope off his neck, loosened it, then tied it in such a way that the noose would not tighten when pulled. Then he put both hands on the noose.
After that, he gently lowered himself down the branch, and carefully, he put the noose under his chin.
As he lowered himself down, he felt his arms protest at his weight.
But somehow, he did it.
Slowly, he let his hands fall on his sides, so that he hung by the rope with his lower jaw. He was still alive.
He knew this was extremely risky, but a small chance was better than no chance at all. It was hard to breathe, and he felt like his neck would break any moment if he moved the wrong way. He needed to be very careful, one mistake and he would really end up hanging himself.
He took one last deep breath, then he let his arms fall limp on either side, closed his eyes, and pretended to be dead. He imagined the color of his head, probably black, from the lack of circulation in his head and the numbness he was starting to feel.
Judas waited a few moments. He could hear the voices of people over the hill getting louder as they came closer to where he was.
Then they spotted him.
By the sound of it, there were four of them, one woman and three men. A young woman screamed and pointed at his body, hanging from the tree branch. Judas tried to be as still as he could. He tried to hold his breath to look the part. The numbness in his head had spread. If it was not already black, he imagined his face probably looked blue right now.
The truth was, he was beginning to choke for real. He felt himself sway gently, as the branch swayed, and the rope turned. The turning made him dizzy.
“It’s him!” one of the men said.
“It’s the traitor Judas!” another said.
They ran towards him to see Judas closer and make sure it really was the traitor.
“It’s true, he has hanged himself,” a third man said.
“We must tell the others,” the other answered.
Now came the tricky part. If they all left to call the others, then Judas had a chance. He would climb down, and then he would have bought enough time to escape, what with them thinking him dead. But if one or two of them remained to guard his body, he would be in big trouble. Unless if only one remained, he might try fighting that one off. It didn't seem like they were soldiers either, there was no sound of mail or armor clinking.
Judas listened as they ran off, hurrying to bring the news to the others. Then one of them turned to look in his direction again.
The noose was moving dangerously closer to his neck. Judas wanted to do something about it, but kept himself still.
“What are you waiting for?” the young man yelled to the woman.
The woman looked back at Judas’s body. “Vultures! They might eat his corpse.” The woman yelled back.
Damn woman. Judas cursed in his head. Who cares about vultures! Go away stupid girl. Judas began to feel panic. He wondered if the woman could hear his heart beating in his chest.
“Then let them eat his corpse,” the man answered. “He is a traitor and deserves no kindness from anyone, not even in death.” Judas silently thanked the man. Finally, someone with half a brain.
The woman looked at the other man, and then back again at Judas’s body. For a moment, the woman did not move.
“It’s good that you have finally paid for your crimes,�
� the woman said finally. Then, after what seemed like forever, the woman decided to join the others.
She turned one more time before finally disappearing over the hill. “You deserve worse than that,” the woman said.
Judas listened as their voices became more and more distant, then he risked an eye open—just a tiny slit—to make sure that they were really gone. It seemed they had passed over the hill and he was safe.
Somehow, his crazy plan had worked. He was a genius! He still had to figure out how to save Arcana and Varak and Gnaeus, but he had to deal with one problem at a time. For now, it was time to go down.
But as he looked down on the ground in front of him, he almost shrieked in surprise; there was a young man wearing white robes standing there. Luckily, Judas did not produce any sound, what with the rope choking him. But his body involuntarily jerked, and the movement caused the noose to come closer against his neck.
For a moment, he found it even harder to breathe. But he had to keep still. Judas prayed the man did not notice his surprise, but how did the man get there in the first place?
Judas was sure he only heard the footsteps of three men and one woman. Unless there was one among them who had a really quiet step.
There were only four of them.
He cursed inside his head. Go away! Judas made a mental command to the man, willing the man to disappear. As his vision started to turn black from the lack of air, he started thinking how unfair the world was. Just a little more, just a little more, he could do it. He had survived many troubles, something like this was nothing.
But, to his dismay, the man suddenly spoke. “Why are you hanging by your neck and pretending to be dead?” The young man said.
Chapter 14 - Gabriel
Startled, Judas involuntarily moved, causing the rope to tighten deeper around his neck. This time, the rope choked him for real. If he continued like this, he would really die. In that moment, he decided that, if he was going to die anyway, he would rather have a chance against the man. After all, there was only one enemy, unless if he had mistaken the count again.
The Lost Book of Chaos: How to Divide the World (The Secret Wars of Angels 1) Page 12