The Jealous God

by Brendan Carroll

  Omar advanced on him, ready to strike him down; and Bari held up one hand.

  “Go ahead and kill me… if you can,” his son told him. “It will change nothing. I only wanted a brother. Someone I could love. Someone who would love me.”

  “You don’t know what love is! Don’t you realize what you did was wrong?! A sin of the worst kind. A man cannot lie with his own mother. An abomination in the eyes of God. It is simply not done!”

  “Oh? Why not? I am no different from you. I found her quite attractive, and I could not have asked for a better mother for my own son,” Bari’s voice had changed a bit. “Now, she is dead because of what you thought of her. It was not her fault. You killed her. You, and your sins, and your righteous piety. You made her think she was unclean.”

  “That’s a lie! I never blamed her!” Omar felt his knees weaken. “I never really blamed you! If you had not been taken away from us, none of this would have happened. You would have known better.”

  “Where then, do you blame?” Bari asked him.

  “I blame myself.” Omar looked down at the floor. His ears burned, and his faced burned with a mixture of rage and shame. Shame for what his own son dared to say to him. Shame he had not the fortitude to strike him dead on the spot and be done with it. He was weak. He could have killed him with the wave of one hand. “I should have listened to my father. He told me the dangers of bringing children into the world.”

  “Oh, really, and so, you would never have had a son at all? Is that it? Is that supposed to make me feel better? How did I know what was right and what was wrong? You never told me! You never told me anything. I grew up an orphan!” A slight smile tweaked his lips.

  “But Joey and Reuben are good Christians! Surely they taught you the difference between good and evil.”

  “Perhaps, they did, but they left out a great deal. Besides, they were afraid of me. They are still afraid of me. Everyone is afraid of me. Why is that? Am I a freak? They say, you were very proud of me once.”

  “You were a beautiful child. Perfect in every way. I had great plans for you,” Omar told him.

  “And so, now what do we do, Father? You have lost your wife, and I have lost my mother. We are both to blame. We share the same pain. I can see no other answer than to kill me and be done with it. Perhaps, your next son will have better luck.”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Bari,” Omar admitted, though he had thought about it a great deal… was still thinking about it. “I think there is still hope. There is always hope. While we live, there is hope. Perhaps, a bit of time with your grandfather would do you some good.”

  “Who? Mark Ramsay?” Barry shook his head again. “I don’t think so.”

  “No. My father, Adalune.”

  “Oh! The mighty Djinni! You know he once hung me over a pit of molten rock and threatened to drop me in? That grandfather! Yes, that would be very pleasant.”

  “You underestimate him.” Omar spread both hands in front of him. “He knows a great deal. He is very wise.”

  “I would rather stay here in prison.” Bari turned his back and sat down at the table again. He picked up his pen and began to write on the paper.

  Omar stepped closer and looked over his shoulder.

  “What are you working on?”

  “I am doing comparative research,” Bari told him without looking up. A copy of the Koran, a Bible and an old parchment scroll lay on the desk.

  “Really? You are studying religion?”

  “Yes. I want to know where I went wrong.”

  “Ahh. That is progress.” Omar’s spirits lifted somewhat. He had done the same thing when he had been Bari’s age. “Have you learned anything profitable?”

  “I have learned I am a great sinner, and I should be cast into hell,” Bari nodded.

  “Have you learned nothing of redemption?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hell does not exist,” Omar told him. “You are studying the wrong books.”

  “Oh?” This statement made his son look up at him.

  “I can send you some more interesting texts to study, if you are serious.”

  “I would like that.” Bari returned his attention to the paper.

  “Then, I will do what I can.” Omar walked back toward the door before turning back to him. His anger had faded, and he thought, he had handled the situation admirably. Even though he felt physically ill from the emotional fluctuations the encounter had produced. “I want you to know I have forgiven you.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Bari still did not turn around. “That way I know when, and if, I am ever ready to ask your forgiveness, I will already know the answer.”

  Omar stopped, turned slowly, and stood staring at him a few seconds before knocking on the door. He had nothing, whatsoever, in common with this man that he had once paraded so proudly on the steps of his palace in New Babylon. What was it Simon of Grenoble had once told him about pride? Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. Surely, he was now reaping the benefits of the whirlwind he had sown. He had been so very proud. Proud of his son, proud of his house, proud of his accomplishments, even proud of his looks and none of it would have been possible without the Creator who had allowed him to be brought into the world. And, his final goal had never flowered. His dream to bring the world into the New Aeon of Glory. He had meant to bring Light to the World! To return to the earth something it had lost. The Light of the Truth! But, his dream would go unrealized… perhaps, not eternally unrealized, but unrealized by him. He was not the One.

  ‘Close, but no cigar!’ he thought ruefully, as he made his way down the dank, stone stairs of the ancient structure.

  Chapter Fourteen of Fifteen

  the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it

  Lucio tapped lightly on Mark Andrew’s door, and Simon opened it quietly. The healer looked tired, and his normally rosy cheeks were pale. The last few weeks, and especially the last few days, had taken a toll on him; and it hurt Lucio’s heart to see him looking so very sad again.

  “How is he?” Lucio asked, as he followed Simon to the bed, and looked down at the sleeping face of the Knight of Death. He was frowning in his sleep as if he did not want to open his eyes.

  “He is not resting peacefully, but he is warm now.” Simon told him and resumed his seat in the chair beside the bed. “He keeps talking in his sleep. I don’t believe he has slept for days, maybe weeks… who can say?”

  “I know the feeling.” Lucio brought another chair and sat down beside the healer. Again, he found himself with Simon and Mark Andrew. None of the others had come to sit with the Prince of the Grave. So many times, these three had sat beside each other, as if waiting for death to come, only to thumb their noses at the specter and go on about their businesses. “What is he saying?”

  “He is talking about a lot of things. You. Me. Meredith. Jozsef Daniel. Dreams, I suppose.” Simon shrugged. Dreams were like confession, very private, and he felt bad to be listening in on Mark’s dreams. In fact, Mark’s dreams frightened him. “I think he was up on the roof casting one of his spells. Probably to protect the manna.”

  “The what?” Lucio frowned. “Did you say manna?”

  “Yes. Weren’t you at the meeting?” Simon frowned at him. He had, apparently, missed a meeting during his visit with Catharine. He had stayed on the roof too long. “Luke Matthew tells us, his brother brought a supply of manna from the underworld. Armand de Bleu made it at the King’s request.” Simon shook his head and shuddered. “Lucio, do you really believe Armand could make such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose anything is possible. I don’t know anything any more,” Lucio told him.

  “What about Catharine? What are you going to do about her?” Simon asked him.

  “Why does it have to be me, Brother?” Lucio narrowed his eyes at the healer.

  “I helped Louis with the laundry,
” Simon shrugged.

  “I don’t understand. What has that to do with anything? That’s a little different from…” Lucio was truly puzzled.

  “Your letter. You left it in your pocket.” Simon smiled slightly.

  “And you read it?!” Lucio was appalled.

  “I had to see if it was important enough to keep.” Simon looked a bit sheepish. “I didn’t want to throw away your lucky lotto ticket.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Lucio looked down at the floor.

  “She intends to marry you,” Simon said quietly. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Like I said: I don’t know. I am thinking about it.”

  “But, you have been married three times already.” Simon looked up at the ceiling. Tears were just visible in Simon’s eyes, and Lucio’s heart sank to his knees. They were talking about his mother.

  “And you have been married four times,” Lucio reminded him gently. “We are very old, Simon. All of us. We’ve made many mistakes. We’re not perfect.”

  “That’s true,” Simon nodded. “But, you are not a widower, and your wife is still alive.”

  “Joey is still alive or she was the last time I saw her.”

  Lucio’s discomfiture began to take a turn toward aggravation.

  “Joey is still my wife,” Simon told him evenly. “I have two wives. I am lost.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Lucio almost laughed. “Joey was married to Simon, the elder and you are… I mean, Simon, the younger, is the one who fell in love with Lydia. You cannot hold yourself responsible for… I mean, it’s not like you were… hell, Simon! I don’t know what it is, but you are a special case, and you are not married to Joey! Reuben is married to Joey and that’s that.”

  “Ahh. So that’s it. I am special,” Simon agreed, and his smile returned as he rubbed subconsciously at his eyes. “It is very difficult to counsel my Brothers against sinning when I am lost in sin myself.”

  “At least, you can speak from experience now,” Lucio told him. “I like it better like this. Before, you always made me feel bad, but now you just make me feel… bad. In a different way, I mean. I can still feel bad, but I know you are bad too, or at least, almost as bad as me… Santa Maria!”

  “Reuben never married Joey,” Simon continued. “He is truly like his namesake. He cannot marry her as long as she is married to me.”

  “Then why don’t you release her?” Lucio frowned. He’d actually known none of this.

  “Because, my father will not allow it,” Simon told him bluntly.

  “But, he allowed you to marry Lydia!” Lucio blurted in exasperation. “That’s not right!”

  “There are many things that are not right, Brother. My father sees nothing wrong with having more than one wife. You forget who we are talking about. Edgard d’Brouchart,” Simon shrugged. “I just consider her my daughter and that makes things even worse.”

  “I should say so! You are married to your daughter, and your son is living in sin with your wife. Not a good deal, old friend. You need to regroup and reconsider.”

  “No. Not a good deal at all. My father says Joey will die sooner or later and things will revert to their natural states.”

  “That’s ludicrous! That sounds just like the old man,” Lucio scowled. “Sometimes, I just want to hit him in the nose or… something.”

  “You will not be allowed to marry Catharine until you are free of Nicole,” Simon told him simply.

  Lucio opened his mouth to retort, but another voice startled them. They had forgotten about Mark Andrew.

  “Nicole?” Mark Andrew spoke the word, and they both fell silent. “Nicole! I need to speak to you!”

  “Is he still asleep?” Lucio leaned forward and whispered the question.

  “Nicole Ramsay!!” Mark Andrew raised his voice in anger and jerked his head. “You will not turn your back on me again!”

  Lucio looked at Simon and cringed. He, too, felt guilty listening to this.

  “You will go back and marry Lucio,” Mark Andrew continued.

  Simon stood up suddenly and his pale face grew even more gray in the dim light.

  “I canna do thot!” Mark rolled his head on the pillow. “It wud be an abomination!”

  “Why not go down and get some breakfast, Brother.” Simon took his arm.

  “Whoy not? Because Andrea cannot marry him, thot’s whoy not!” Mark jerked his head again.

  “Wait!” Lucio tried to pull away from the healer. “I want to hear this.”

  “No, you don’t.” Simon dragged him along. “It is nothing. It is a sin to listen!”

  “A sin? You speak of sins?! I am trying to save your soul and his as well, lassie!” Mark answered Simon.

  Simon opened the door and forcefully shoved the Italian onto the balcony.

  “No, wait!” Lucio did not want to hurt the healer. He tried to push past him. “Now he’s talking about souls.”

  “You can’t listen!” Simon shoved him angrily, and he fell against the balcony railing.

  “Dammit, Simon! What is wrong with you?” Lucio straightened himself up and looked down at the angry priest. Simon pulled the door closed and stood in front of it obstinately.

  “Enough is enough,” Simon told him.

  “You know something.” Lucio eyed him suspiciously. “Tell me what you know about Andrea.”

  “I don’t know anything about her,” Simon lied.

  “You are lying.” Lucio shook his head in disgust.

  “And, you are thinking of marrying Catharine de Goth! Why are you still interested in Andrea?” Simon asked him and raised both eyebrows.

  “You are thinking of marrying Catharine de Goth?” Edgard d’Brouchart’s voice startled them both as he echoed his son’s words. They had forgotten where they were.

  The Grand Master was standing in the open door of the library. Lucio and Simon turned slowly to face the red-faced man.

  “Perhaps, now would be a good time to do what you’ve always wanted to do, Brother,” Simon whispered under his breath as the angry man advanced on them.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “But, what?” Christopher frowned, and Izzy shook his head. Lavon let out a long sigh and swiveled around in the chair.

  “This is important.” Konrad pointed to the words on the split screen of the old computer monitor. “These are the interpretations of the scrolls my father recorded. This is a conversation, as I said, between Trismegistus and Asclepius. In other words this is a conversation between Mark Ramsay and a man called Asclepius. Its exact date of origin is unknown. It is also unknown whether this was an actual dialog or whether the Asclepius was simply a symbolic character representing all students of the mysteries. He says ‘… are you ignorant, Asclepius, that Egypt is the image of heaven? Moreover, it is the dwelling place of heaven and all the forces that are in heaven.’ This has been shown to be literally the truth. The alignment of the Nile in reference to the positions of the pyramids on the Giza Plain are a gigantic representation of the constellation Orion.”

  “I have heard and seen this demonstrated,” Philip said and smiled. “Look.” He grabbed a sheet of wrinkled scrap paper on the desk and marked out the Nile and the pyramids. “See? Orion’s Belt on earth.”

  “And so Mark Ramsay knew this way back then?” Christopher sighed again. “I still don’t understand. It is over my head.”

  “It is over all our heads, Brother,” Izzy agreed. “These scrolls contain so much information, it will take hundreds of years to decipher it all, and we may not have hundreds of years.”

  “That’s an astute observation, Issachar.” Philip frowned at his brother. “So proceed, Brother Hetz.”

  Konrad rolled his eyes and scrolled down the page. The younger members of the Council were still very naïve in some respects. Especially, Simon’s sons.

  “He goes on to talk about Alexandria here.” Konrad tapped the glass with a pen. “He says a day would come when the Alexandrians would not be allowe
d to worship God in their own way. This came to pass after the third century AD. Constantine decided the Alexandrian Christians commonly known as Gnostics were all heretics. They were forced out, hunted, persecuted, and finally martyred. That is why they buried their collection of scrolls in jars at Nag Hammadi. These scrolls, which my father had, were Constantine’s own copies or perhaps originals. He simply didn’t like them, apparently. Whatever the reason, he decided they weren’t proper, and so, they were hidden. My father rooted them out.”

  “Now, Hermes expounded upon this destruction of Egypt, as the center of the world, philosophically speaking, for quite some time. He then talks about the fall from grace for Egypt and Egyptians. He says instead of being the land of the Gods, it would be a land of tombs. We have seen this come to pass. Most Christians do not know their religion got its start, primarily, in Alexandria, Egypt. Constantine’s crusade against the Gnostics was quite successful. But now, we come to the good stuff!” Konrad’s voice found a bit more animation, and he straightened up in the chair. “In the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, much of this paragraph is missing. Here, we have the entire thing, and it is no wonder it was hidden by Constantine. Listen. ‘And a new law will be established and it will rule for two thousand years under the Eagle, the double Eagle and the bald Eagle and they will persecute the world in the name of Romulus and they will hide the light of God under a basket…’ sound familiar?” Konrad looked about the faces in the room.

  “That sounds like what Jesus said about hiding your light under a bushel or basket,” Izzy spoke up.

  “Exactly. Hermes was predicting Romulus, Rome, would hide the truth from the world and the Eagle, Rome, Germany, America would all follow Romulus for two thousand years. It continues ‘and they will give out what was good for evil and what was evil for good. The wicked angels will remain among men and be with them and lead them into wicked things recklessly, as well as into atheism, wars and plunderings, by teaching them things contrary to nature.’ Certainly, no truer words have ever described what the Church and its followers have done for the past two thousand years.”