“Never!” grated the knight.
With a nod, Khalid signaled to the soldier behind Willehad. The knight was forced down, his knees slammed to the dirt and his chest pressed to a stump that now served for a headsman’s block.
“The martyr says to God ‘this life is yours,’” said Ransom, “while the suicide declares ‘it’s my life,’ and no words hold greater peril than those.”
The axe fell in a black arc.
“He who gains his life shall lose it. He who loses his life shall gain it.”
As Willehad’s headless corpse was dragged unceremoniously aside, the next of the king’s men approached the stump. Stone-faced, he knelt of his own accord, ignoring Khalid’s offer.
Corwin had seen enough. He turned his back as the executions continued, the thwack of the axe sounding every few moments. It’s insanity. Both religion and war. It’s all insanity! But then a new sound arose. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the knights lifted their voices in song.
It was a moving chant, slow and reverent. And though the lyrics were all in Latin, Corwin could feel power in the words.
“Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve
ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle”
Over the field their voices carried, only strengthening as the corpses piled up. Even the headsman felt something stir within him. Who were these men, who went to their deaths with neither fear nor hatred in their eyes? Were they truly the detestable swine of whom the Prophet spoke? Then why was their song so hauntingly beautiful?
Yet another knight knelt, baring his neck to the axe. What a terrible weight, that axe! The headsman’s grip faltered. No more. The axe slid from his sweaty palms, fell to the grass. This cannot be Allah’s will. Deep inside, he felt his consciousness touch something lost, now found again. There was an innocence that he could never regain, but a goodness that he could, if only for a moment. The gravity of the choice pressed upon him.
A moment of life, or a lifetime of death?
“I . . . I wish to become a Christian!”
In less time than it took him to draw another breath, Khalid’s knife opened his throat. The headsman’s body rolled down the hill like so many of the heads his axe had hewn.
Again I cull our ranks, thought Khalid. He had seen it coming, predicted it. There’s always one or two like him. It was best to deal with such matters swiftly and soundly, before the sickness spread. Much evil could be sewn by the hushed murmurings of a few soldiers around a campfire.
With cold efficiency, he wiped clean the blade.
“You!” He pointed to one of his men. “Take up the axe!”
Having witnessed what a moment of weakness cost his brother, the soldier obeyed without delay. And still the Christians sang.
“Not one of these men will renounce the Redeemer. Not one of them will live,” Ransom said as smoke began to swirl. “Do you sense nothing noble in their sacrifice? Is their choice foolishness to you?”
“What’s foolish is that this had to happen at all,” replied Corwin. The smoke veiled his eyes, whisking him and his attorney back atop the fortress walls. “Abolishing religion might not bring an end to all wars, but it would bring an end to some, and isn’t that enough? If doing away with all this business of gods and devils could save us from just one nuclear war, wouldn’t that be worth it?”
“Were Christianity but a myth, you would be right,” said the angel. “If there is no afterlife, then all the worldly merits of faith—all the hope and kindness and charity that the Redeemer has inspired—would not be enough. No honest man can say that religion is a wonderful dream. If it is not true, then it is not wonderful at all.”
“That’s exactly my point!” exclaimed Corwin. “Christianity cannot stand on its perceived benefits to society alone. No religion can!”
Moors jumped from a burning siege tower, abandoning its timber skeleton as it veered off course, its great wooden wheels crushing the corpses of those who had fallen in the earlier assault, grinding their bones into the mire.
“But if it is true . . .” Ransom bent to light a cigarette in one of the blazing braziers. “If the fate of not just nations, but eternal souls hangs in the balance, then it is worth any price—an infinite price! For such is the worth of the blood that was spilled to redeem you.”
23
Riddles and Revelations
The only good reason to believe something is if it’s true.
In his past life, those words had spurred Corwin to set off on a quest that led him as far away from God as atheistic humanism could take him, only it wasn’t as far as he thought. A part of him now wondered: If I had lived a little longer, steadfastly followed that maxim a little farther, might it have taken me full circle?
He had to marvel at his own invincible stubbornness. Those contrite atheists who “wished they could believe” would surely have broken long before now. But not Corwin. Truth was the only thing that he wished for, which made the sneaking sense of joy he felt as Christianity’s puzzle came together all the more disconcerting.
Prudently, he reminded himself that the puzzle wasn’t complete yet. There remained one glaring problem in the case for Christianity: Christians.
“How am I supposed to believe all this stuff when Christians themselves don’t believe it? If they did, they’d all be shining examples of love and humility, but when I look at Christian churches, what I see instead is intolerance and hypocrisy.”
“In order to tolerate that which runs contrary to one’s convictions, one must first have convictions,” said Ransom. “Your secular society doesn’t prize tolerance. It prizes indifference. And despite what you may think, Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on hypocrites.”
“Maybe not, but it sure has a lot of them, and they don’t do your cause any favors. Neither does your fanatical adherence to the scribblings of some ancient sheep herders that we’re not even sure existed.”
“Disregard all your ancient scribblings and you won’t have much history left.”
Moorish arrows ricocheted off the unyielding bricks of the guard tower that stood before them. Ransom reached for the iron ring on the door. As the portal swung shut at their backs, all the tumultuous noise of the battlefield was hushed in an instant.
They were somewhere dark and musty. Ransom procured a candlestick from a small table beside the entrance and held the wick to the end of his cigarette. A tiny flame was soon waxing happily, illuminating a path that was about the same width as the walkway they had just left, only this path was quiet, peaceful and hemmed in by tall bookcases. Dusty tomes and papyrus scrolls were stacked three stories high to where brass candelabras hung, flickering and fuming.
Corwin examined the writing on some of the book spines.
“The Douay-Rheims Bible, the New American Bible, the King James Version . . . These are all Bibles.”
“This library is home to every edition, translation and iteration of the Holy Bible that ever was,” said Ransom, “along with apostolic letters and several long lost writings by the Patriarchs. You’ll find the approved, the apocryphal and even the illustrated.”
“There’s even a copy of the Jefferson Bible!” Corwin said in surprise as he pulled a modern-looking volume off the shelf.
“I figured you’d like that one, although a Bible without miracles is like an issue of Playboy without nudity. It kind of misses the point.”
Replacing the book, Corwin continued down the aisle. He ran his fingers along the bindings and marveled at the stupendous effort his race had put into cataloging this most unbelievable of tales.
“If Christians would just admit that most of those stories are mythical, more people might actually take them seriously.”
“Why assume that every account of the supernatural must be a myth?” Ransom inquired.
“I live in the real world, or at least I used to,�
� muttered Corwin.
“What’s more logical: believing in an omnipotent creator who can defy the laws of nature, or one who cannot?”
“Sure, a god who authored the rules should be able to break them, but believing in such a god doesn’t mean that you have to take the Bible literally. No rational person really believes in Noah’s Ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, or Jonah living in the belly of a whale. The Bible is an interesting book, but it’s not a historically accurate one.”
“The Bible is a collection of books,” said Ransom. “Some passages are meant to be taken literally, others are symbolic, still others are poetry. Unlocking the truth requires the correct key.”
“Are you saying that there’s truth to those outlandish stories?”
“There is, though not necessarily in the way you imagine. Much was left unwritten. What if I told you that Noah was a member of an advanced, Atlantian civilization who kept a gene bank of all the Earth’s organisms?”
“Now that’s a flood story I’d like to hear!” laughed Corwin. “But I can’t argue about what’s not written, only about what is. And this I can tell you for sure: To accept the historical claims of the Bible is to discover a tale of two gods, neither one as perfect as your theology suggests. The god of the Old Testament is a cruel and petty tyrant who thinks nothing of massacring women and children. And while Christians like to think of their New Testament god being kinder and gentler, what we really find in Jesus is a puritanical moralist whose strict standards are impossible to live up to, even for his own hand-picked apostles!”
“The Father and the Redeemer are different persons, yet the same God. His love is fierce and his wrath terrible, but his ways are never without mercy.”
“Calling god’s wrath terrible is putting it mildly. In the Old Testament, he wipes out nearly the entire world in the flood, sends the Angel of Death to kill a bunch of children in Egypt, and orders the Israelites to murder every living thing in Jericho, sparing not even the livestock! Where is the justice in that? Where is the mercy?”
“Your lives are valuable precisely because they are not your own. They belong to the Father, and should he not have an absolute right to call souls home to him whenever he wishes?”
“Calling souls home?” echoed Corwin. “That’s a rather kind way of saying killing people.”
“True death comes through sin alone,” said Ransom. “You’re still too caught up in the physical, still judging that which you know not. Can you see what mankind deserves? Can you see the fates of their souls? Can you look a million years into a billion different futures and chart the most humane course? Of the scope of God’s mercy, those bound by time can only guess.”
“One thing that I never would’ve guessed is that a god of perfect justice would be so hard to justify.”
“Before accusing him of cruelty, perhaps you should consider the stubbornness of man. The Father is ever patient, always offering his rebellious children many chances to change, but time and time again, nothing less than bloodshed gets through to you.”
The candelabras creaked, their flames wavering as a sudden gale whipped up a storm of loose parchment. Corwin and Ransom found themselves caught in the eye of a tornado, the library hidden behind whirling Bible pages. When the wind quieted and the papers fell away, they stood in a spacious stone hall.
A stately colonnade bordered the edge of the room, which overlooked a thriving desert oasis. Grand buildings and statues of half-human, half-animal gods shone under the sweltering sun. The broad, azure band of the Nile flowed out of the south, leaning palms and sandstone dwellings nestled along its banks.
To their right the hall rose in a dais, and there sat the Pharaoh, his expression unamused. Standing below him was a bearded man whose robe and walking staff left little doubt as to his identity.
“What is it this time?” moaned the Pharaoh.
“The Lord commands that you set his people free,” declared Moses. “If you will not listen to reason, then he will convince you by the might of his hand.”
“I should like to see that.”
Time leapt forward and it seemed at first that nothing had changed, but then Corwin noticed the river. Its blue waters had turned a dark maroon and the stench of rotting fish was thick in the air.
“I don’t know if you’ve bothered to look outside your palace, but there’s a river of blood out there.” Moses raised his staff towards the Nile. “A river of blood.”
“More of your cheap sorcery,” spat the Pharaoh. “I am the lord of this land, not your feeble god.”
Weeks flew by and now frogs were everywhere, leaping from pillars and feasting on buzzing clouds of flies. The Pharaoh slouched to one side of his throne, his head propped against his knuckles. Swollen boils erupted from his skin and he looked even more irritated than usual.
“Are the pests and disease not enough?” asked Moses. “You can end this at any time.”
“Very well.” The Pharaoh waved him away. “Return to your people.”
As Moses left the hall and the click of his staff against the floor dwindled, a pointy-bearded advisor skulked out of the shadows.
“Are you really going to release them, Sire?” his rasping voice whispered.
“Not a chance.”
Time skipped ahead. Attendants were waving palm fronds in a vain attempt to keep the Pharaoh cool and unmolested by the hundreds of locusts that now made the palace their home. Batting away one of the palms, he seized a locust from his shoulder, crushing it in his fist as the heavens rumbled with a gathering storm.
If Moses was having a better time of things, his face didn’t show it.
“How about now?” he asked in an exasperated tone. “Won’t you reconsider?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Will you truly?”
“There, I’ve thought about it,” announced the Pharaoh. “I decided against it.”
“Have you gone completely mad?” Moses stepped boldly atop the dais. “Hailstorms have beset your kingdom! Swarms of locusts devour your crops!”
“Then we shall dine on locusts!” The Pharaoh leaned forward in his throne, seething with barely contained rage. “I’m told they’re very nutritious.”
The scene changed, and though Corwin sensed that it was day, an ominous darkness hung over all the land. There was no thunder, no pestilence; only a dreadful stillness.
“You’re back,” the Pharaoh said sourly.
“Think of your people, of your family!” pleaded Moses. “The plague that is coming is worse than all the rest.”
But the Pharaoh only hardened his gaze. Rising, he retired from the throne room. He would hear no more.
The scattered pieces of parchment were once again swept up in a rustling, roaring tornado, returning Corwin and Ransom to the library.
“Humans are hardheaded, lazy and fearful of change,” said Corwin when they were back amongst the books. “On that, you’ll hear no argument from me. Heck, I’m probably a pretty good example, myself.”
“You don’t say?”
“However, I’d be a worse person if I lived by the morality of the Bible. The Old Testament justifies slavery, misogyny and brutal punishments for minor crimes. And don’t tell me that Jesus changes all that, because he himself said that he came not to destroy the old law–”
“But to fulfill it,” chimed Ransom. “You’re looking at the threads, but missing the tapestry. Because of man’s stubbornness, the Father took things one small step at a time. And so he began not by abolishing slavery, but by commanding that slaves be treated with greater kindness. He began not by forbidding tribal warfare, but by commanding that his people first offer peace. You think the old law barbaric because you consider not the true barbarism that prevailed before.”
“If god is perfect and unchanging, how can his laws change at all?”
“It was not God who changed. It was man. After the Fall, man was like a limb cut off from the body, but when the body is made whole again, lifeblood can flow i
nto that which was dying. That lifeblood is the saving grace of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit who was sent down when the Redeemer’s sacrifice made you whole.
“Thus the law was fulfilled, for the heights of virtue are possible only through grace, which you did not always have with you, and God never asks the impossible.”
“But he does ask the impossible!” contended Corwin. “Consider the teaching of Jesus: ‘Whosoever looks upon a woman lustfully hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ If that’s true, then every man alive is an adulterer!
“And not only is it impossible to follow, a rule like that isn’t even good morality. Sexual attraction is written into our genes. Without it, the human race would cease to reproduce. Why demonize something so healthy and natural?”
“You speak of lust and physical attraction as though they are the same thing,” said Ransom. “They are not. You can be physically attracted to someone and still respect that person’s dignity. Sexual attraction is, as you say, healthy and natural. But that’s not so for lust. To lust is to objectify. It means viewing a person as less than a person—as merely an object to be used for one’s sexual gratification.”
“Again with the semantics . . .”
“Your disregard for language is why you fail to see the difference between lust and physical attraction, tolerance and indifference, jealousy and envy, self-love and vanity. Need I go on?”
“Jealousy and envy,” mused Corwin. “I don’t think I’ve heard that one yet.”
Ransom obliged, “A jealous man wants what his neighbor has. An envious man wishes that his neighbor didn’t have it.”
“Thanks.” Corwin rolled his eyes. “But even if you explain away every issue of biblical morality, you’re still left with the problems of the Bible itself, namely that it’s unoriginal, contradictory and simply untrue.”
A black cat leapt from one of the bookshelves. It bounded off a globe and landed lightly, the kingdoms and empires of 1,000 B.C. spinning on a squeaky axle as it crossed the aisle to slip behind another row of books.
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