Intense feelings of persecution smothered him, memories of betrayal, as though a hundred knives were being thrust into his back, and he held on to an icy, limestone wall. Then something fortified his enervated body, galvanized his spirit, drawing him along the empty street. But when he saw the battered metal street sign, Via Dolorosa, he buckled. Insufferable pain cut through his back and knees. An immense weight crushed his shoulders, bent his back. On the crystalline ground he gazed in horror as blood ran copiously from his nose, merging with sparkling ice particles bonded hard to the ancient cobblestones. His face burned, his eyes streamed, his dry mouth filling with bitter mucus: his body was being altered, remodelled.
The extraneous force hauled him up, urged him on, and at a crossroads he was compelled to leave Via Dolorosa and turn left into El Wad HaGai Street. The way was even narrower. It rose and fell, twisted and turned as far as he could see, timeworn, crumbling, low-slung bridges and decayed steps frequenting its route. On both sides of the constricted street eyes peered at him from darkened windows. Doors began to open. The houses’ occupants wandered out and stared at him. A young man cried out to him, and then averted his eyes.
Near an Armenian oratory he was beset by raging thirst and lurched to the entrance of a small dwelling. The door opened and an elderly woman emerged from the darkness and smiled. She appeared slim and fit for her years and her immaculately groomed, powdery hair was tied back into a short ponytail. She wore a sheer, loose-fitting, white cotton dress and sandals offering no protection from the abnormally low temperature, and yet she didn’t seem to feel the biting cold. A part of him recognized her vaguely. She was like a faded photograph from a forgotten life: For now he could no longer recall his own name.
‘Please, I’m so thirsty, could you give me a little water?’ he begged.
She turned in silence, vanishing unnaturally into the impossible darkness of the house, and returned with an ice-filled, glass goblet. He drank its contents quickly.
‘You mustn’t be afraid,’ she whispered.
Her voice made his heart race; it was familiar to him, a part of him somehow. ‘You were born for this day.’
Her words comforted, but confused him. ‘You have been so kind, thank you,’ he said, and walked away, replenished.
‘I have always loved you! I will always love you!’ she called after him.
He climbed back up the steps and held her close, suppressing tears that begged, but were unable to flow.
After he’d left the house he glanced back and saw she’d gone and that the door had disappeared, replaced by solid, limestone brick. He heard footsteps behind him and turned; several people were following him at a distance.
At the junction of Via Dolorosa and El Wad Hagai Street, near a Franciscan chapel, strength left him once more and an eternally young man rushed forwards to support him.
‘You shall not bear this burden alone, my brother,’ said the stranger.
‘ ... Thank you. Thank you for your kindness. I feel as though I know you, even if I no longer know myself.’
‘You’re familiar with everything I once was, and now you know I never really left you. There’s so much for you still to understand. A life lost young is not necessarily wasted.’
When they reached Ha Dagel Street he slumped. But there was nobody to help him and he realized the young man had left his side, that he was alone again, alone apart from his inexplicable following, which had increased in number and grown more vociferous.
Shortly, he rejoined Via Dolorosa and the ancient, shadowy architecture ahead seemed to distort in the raw air. A tall, dignified-looking man appeared and approached him, smiling warmly through his breath cloud. He pulled a cloth from the pocket of his shorts, reached forward, and wiped the perspiration from his brow with the greatest compassion.
‘You are as I remember you,’ he said, his blue eyes twinkling with affection. ‘A touch older perhaps, somewhat shorter of hair, and I can see that you’re burdened with this great responsibility but you are, and will always be my son, in death as you were in life. I’m so very proud of you.’
He stepped backwards, the air rippled and he vanished.
Via Dolorosa ended, evolving into El-Khanqa Street, and at its intersection with with a cramped side road he stumbled for a second time, landing heftily on the glacial paving stones. Again, a power he could neither recognize nor comprehend hauled him back up, persuaded him to carry on.
At the foot of some steps, before an atrophied arch denoting the elevated crossing of a narrow way above, three women huddled against a high wall; they were crying for him. He stopped, and the masses halted behind him.
‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me,’ he told them, gently. ‘But weep for yourselves, and for your children.’
Later, by the entrance to an imposing church, terrible memories descended upon him like a veil of death. The remaining energy deserted his legs and he fell badly. Blood trickled from his forehead and red holes penetrated his hands and feet. But as a mortal wound in his side began to drain life from him an ethereal arm bolstered him, lifted him back up, and he heard the voice of the elderly woman who had given him water.
‘You should go no further down this road ... you know the route you must take.’
Quite suddenly he was aware of the existence of something that burned with utter hatred for all things — something wicked, impenetrably black, something that meant to terminate life on God’s Earth, something that had to be stopped! He whirled around outraged, his strength renewed, and retraced his steps, walking at speed and with purpose. Hundreds followed him, crying, screaming.
‘Meshiakh!’
Some ran forwards and pawed his stripped body in adoration.
‘Melekh Ham’lokhim!’
But the temperature dropped lower and lower and ahead of him visibility decreased to a mere glimmer, like the dying flame of humanity.
Thirty-six
The man remembered by some as Thomas Sharman left the darkness of a short tunnel and stopped abruptly. Ahead, several thousand people fermented with anger, dwarfed by a vast curtain of flames.
Some at the back of the crowd noticed him and word spread quickly. The commotion died and they parted to let him through, silent in their shock and reverence, and watched in horror as he headed blindly for the wall of fire.
Inside the fierce inferno the blue flames licked over his naked flesh but didn’t burn him and he felt no pain, only the need to pass through them and confront the force that lay beyond them, waiting.
When he exited the fire he saw before him the sundered ruins of a large construction. From beneath the massive, fragmented blocks arms protruded, bent at impossible angles. Legs without flesh. Heads, mashed to bloody pulp; unidentifiable faces. And on top of the ruins sat a young girl — wretched, vulnerable, alone.
He quenched the arc of fire and the masses raced forwards, leaping across the fissure in the ground from which the flames had sprung. He lifted a hand to halt them, then climbed the mountain of debris.
She hid her face behind blackened, trembling knees which her skinny, wan arms clamped tightly to her chest. Her ebony eyes were glassy, distant, and her naked body streamed with dirty sweat that the air froze instantly, making her shiver violently. She seemed unaware of him: But something about her awakened intense emotion within him.
As if stirred from a dream, her head turned to face him and her eyes met his. They mellowed. ‘ ... Thom?’
‘Thom?’ he frowned. ‘Yes, I was a man named Thomas. In another place, another time.’
‘Where are we?’
‘I am home.’
‘Where is home?’
‘We are in Jerusalem.’
‘Why are we here?’
‘I think I understand now why I am here.’
Behind him, the horde shuffled forwards and a sharp stone hurtled from the darkness, catching her on the cheek, chipping the bone and opening a deep cut. Bile spilled from her lips, spotting her bare breasts, and she broke
the laws of the physical world, levitating above the rubble. Electricity cracked the air and in the crowd a young man fell, stones tumbling from his dead hand.
‘NO! YOU SHALL HURT NOBODY ELSE!’ he decreed, snatching her ankle.
She tried to kick herself free.
The sensations of physical change returned and he let her go. His mouth opened in silent agony as he heard the brittle snap of his own bones, as his physiology altered. His body felt as it were on a rack, stretching, breaking. He brought a hand to his face: it was elongating beneath his touch. The bridge of his nose snapped, blood gushing from the nostrils, then reformed, long and straight. His thin, brown hair grew rapidly until it touched his naked shoulders. His facial stubble transformed into a full beard and moustache and his knuckles crunched as his stout fingers lengthened, became elegant. Then the pain passed. The metamorphosis was complete.
The people erupted and rushed at the demolished edifice, clambering up to reach him. He raised his hand once more.
She fell back onto the summit, stupefied, heaving with revulsion and loathing. Her lips moved unwillingly as her overlord spoke for her with unbridled enmity, its voice dry, damning. ‘ ... Thou hast ... thou hast deceived me,’ it stammered, as spittle oozed from her mouth. Thou ... hast hidden this truth from me ... this terrible truth. As I existed within thee ... guided thee ... gave thy miserable life purpose the Christ dwelt ... within the earthly body of thy lover ... this bastard man, Thomas. So many days ... so many nights I could have snuffed out its moralistic flame. But thee ... thee protected it! It is the greatest wrongdoing of all time.’
Her eyes drilled him. ‘ ... Thou hast deceived me too, brother, although I expected nothing less of thee! Thou shalt pay a truly terrible price. I shall prolong the suffering leading to thine extinction indefinitely. But thou shalt die, and I will have my prize ... didst thou think thee could cheat me of it?’
She loosed some stinging sputum and spat it at him. ‘ ... Lying ... cheating ... cunts!’ it seethed, and sucked the blood from her veins until she atrophied, and appeared as if deceased. ‘Now the bitch is dead!’ it lied. ‘She will never return to this world or to thee ... brother.’
‘WHY HAVE YOU KILLED HER? YOU ARE EVIL ... YOU SHALL TAKE NO MORE LIFE!’ He struck her quickly and sharply. ‘ ... Brother? You are no brother to me! What manner of horror are you?’
‘Dost thou not know me? Dost thou not recall me from memories of thy physical life in this place, now that we are so close? I was Pilate, fool! I ordered thine execution, had Roman soldiers hammer thee to the cross. Thou tookest days to perish as thy disciples bawled and blubbered at thy bleeding feet. They were pitiful! But thee ... thee wore thy crown of thorns well.’
Agonizing recollections of his protracted death raced through him.
‘When I have ended thee, nailed thee to the cross of timber high upon the new Calvary, when thou art truly dead, mankind will serve me.’
‘You would destroy mankind!’
‘I will be mankind’s salvation.’
‘I will do my father’s bidding and protect his children from you.’
‘Thy father? I am his sole issue, we both know this. My father poured his true essence into my creation. Thy coming was incidental.
‘You are unadulterated badness and I shall rid this world of you. You will return to hell, whence you came and to where you were banished so long ago.’
‘My malevolence is mightier than thy benevolence. See how the world around thee decays, falls into my hands.’
‘You shall do no more harm ... ’
‘I SHALL DO AS I WISH!’
The Beast cranked her corpselike head until she stared upwards and eastwards. It concentrated all of its power and malice upon an arid region of northern Afghanistan, near its border with Tajikstan, and forced her exanimate lips to smile in recognition of a wilful act that would precipitate a holocaust.
‘There is a powerful weapon,’ it eructed. ‘Powerful and final. It is in the eastern lands and points towards the west. It’s journey has begun.’
On the rooftop the television crew stopped filming and exchanged fearful glances before opening an urgent dialogue with their base in the south of the city.
In the crowd those who’d understood the words of the Beast relayed them, and the sound of hysteria spread across the plaza. They pleaded with him, their arms outstretched.
‘Yishu ... opgebn undz fun shlekht!’
‘We beg of you Lord... end this nightmare!’
He rounded on her. ‘I will not allow this atrocity!’
‘Too ... fucking ... late!’
‘You may have broken my body on Calvary but my spirit endured, living on within each and every mortal soul, like a seed that has germinated.’
‘My slaves now.’
‘Damn you!’
‘I am already damned!’ It respired deeply and breathed out into his face, removing most of the epidermis, but he closed his eyes and felt little pain, just sorrow for the torment the woman had suffered within the clutches of his evil sibling, and fury at the horrors it had wrought upon the Earth, upon humanity.
Without warning her foot lashed out, catching him behind the knees and bringing him down beside her, but as he fell he lunged, closing a hand around her throat. ‘LEAVE HER!’ he commanded.
‘SHE ... IS ... DEAD! Thy precious Kristin is ... gone forever!’
‘Kristin?’
‘Thy ... lover!’
‘ ... I did not take a wife, did not lie with a woman.’
‘Dost thou ... not recall the black well of creation, rising from ... beneath the place of conception ... an irresistible tide, as was thy ... seed to the female?’
He stared into the nefarious, pitch pools of her eyes.
‘Dost thou ... not remember thy love, brother, thy ... Kristin?’
He delved into the deepest recesses of his addled mind, seeking the smallest scrap of memory that might correlate with its repulsive, strangled utterance. And he began to remember. He remembered a dark stairway. A small dwelling in a large, modern city, in an age unfamiliar to him. He remembered loss, grief, death. And he remembered blissful sexual union from which he had meant to abstain.
He focused on her remains as the Beast slavered caustic bile over his tight grip. Although she had just lashed out at him he felt certain she was dead; an exploited, exhausted husk.
But she had been his lover.
‘Kristin?’ he whispered. ‘Yes ... I remember her now.’
‘It will ... hurt thee, then, to learn that she was ... with child?’
A tear welled in his eye and trickled down through his wiry, brown beard until it reached the end of a long strand of hair at the tip of his chin. The tear was for all mankind. It was for the beautiful world his father had created. And it was for the woman, Kristin, his forbidden love upon Earth, and for his unborn child.
As he cried the Beast started to laugh — crazed, abandoned laughter that echoed through the remains of the old city, across its modern counterpart, and for miles beyond; across the whole world.
The tear sagged, and unable to defy gravity any longer dropped into her mocking mouth. She swallowed involuntarily, her eyes aflame, protruding with inexpectation, and fell silent. Then she began to shriek, her naked, emaciated body thrashing, convulsing, and keeled backwards onto the rubble, motionless.
He drew himself up and stood over her: From somewhere inside her being a terrible sound whistled loudly and then faded. Her lids opened slowly to reveal perfect eyes, the most beautiful, sparkling green eyes he’d ever seen, their whites like virgin snow. She smiled at him, sighed and the lids closed again as her wasted, white body stiffened and died.
Thirty-seven
The darkness lifted like a fast sunrise, revealing a sapphire sky dotted with white, billowing clouds: The false night had passed.
He looked towards the heavens imploringly and cried out, ‘Father, please help me!’ Then, after a short time, he closed his eyes in relief, and tur
ned to face the people.
His celestial image lit up millions of television screens across the world: But it was vital everybody, everywhere believe in him, critical they listen to his words, understand their import, essential they heed their warning. And it was imperative that he appear in a form relative to every creed on Earth.
Over the Christian world, in New York, London, Paris, Rome, in Madrid, above table mountain in Cape Town, in Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, he augmented his media image with tens of thousands of physical manifestations in streets, parks, near places of worship and seats of government — anywhere they could be seen, anywhere his message would be heard by many; and by those who must hear.
In the desert of northern Afghanistan a sudden, intense sandstorm waned, disclosing a colossal, glowing representation of the prophet, Muhammad. The same embodiment materialized directly above the nation’s capital, Kabul. In Iraq, a massive incarnation rose from the depths of the Tigris river snaking through Baghdad. Another levitated above the Elburz mountains overlooking Tehran, in Iran. Further apparitions appeared near the outskirts of Karachi and over Islamabad in Pakistan, and in India the hysterical, teeming masses of New Delhi and Mumbai beheld visions of Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu.
In North Korea, an overweight man of considerable power watched, awestricken, from a window balcony as a vast, orange-coloured likeness of Buddha formed in the crisp, clear air and settled in the great square before the central government building in Pyongyang, whilst smaller embodiments flitted along its deserted, gleaming corridors like pale ghosts.
Another perfect representation, equal in size and brightness, all but emptied Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in China. Although some remained, bathing in its incandescent beauty.
Kristin Page 19