The knowledge that he had murdered Philo brought Lukian a strange sort of pleasure. He knew such pleasure was perverse, but he savored it like honey-dipped bread.
Then something shifted inside, and he fell into the bloody pool. He scrambled up, chest heaving, fingertips prickling. He grabbed his hair and pulled.
The desire. The thirst. Leave me!
It was as if a serpent were coiled inside him biting, devouring. At one moment he was repulsed. At the next he only wanted to embrace it. His soul shook, caught between extremes.
But he was weak, and the desire grew.
His gaze was frozen on Philo’s body, the way it lay there twisted. He wanted to turn, but couldn’t. He saw, as if from far away, a finger extended toward the pool of blood. The finger broke the surface, then came to Lukian’s mouth, which opened wide to receive it. His lips closed over the finger, which squirmed around his mouth, but he felt nothing. He thought he saw silver eyes in the Fog, and a small figure, like a little boy whose skin was gray with death.
Lamech, he thought. Why did I urge Lamech to run into the Fog?
His brother’s death screams had echoed on and on, calling for him to help, to do anything. But Lukian ran. He just ran.
The sensations flooded back. He gasped and realized what the wetness on his face was.
“Blood,” he said, as it dripped from his lips.
Sarah was crying, and she slid her arms around herself and squeezed. The memories were flooding back quicker than she could handle, and she rocked.
Do they know?
She rolled onto her side. She knew they watched, but no longer cared. She couldn’t keep everything coiled inside. She knew from Gorban’s wounds that something terrible had happened.
No. Lilleth’s lifeless eyes floated through her mind. Many terrible things have happened. Where are you, Cain? You promised you’d come back. You promised …
God had forsaken her, and she was trapped in his Temple. Why else would she be here but to receive justice? She longed for companionship, but to open herself to another felt like a fate worse than death. Though she hated and feared Cain, he seemed to her the better of two damnations.
I don’t want to die.
“What have you done?”
She jumped at Jacob’s voice.
“What happened? Have you failed?” Jacob said.
Gorban’s reply was sharp. “Learn respect, child.”
Terah walked to her son. Her lips trembled with suppressed emotion, and she slid her arms around him and wept. Jacob held her, looking surprised and alarmed.
“My brothers are out there.” Terah’s voice was muffled by his shoulder.
Jacob rubbed her back.
“I know my brothers are out there,” she repeated.
“Father still has not come back.”
Terah just cried.
Gorban gazed at them strangely, and Sarah wondered what was churning in his mind. Then his gaze met hers, and she looked away and clutched her robe. The fibers were rough, and the hard floor hurt her bones, weakened by days of inaction. Has it really been fifteen days?
Sarah closed her eyes, but the images only burned brighter. She glanced up. Gorban still watched. She turned away and hoped he mistook what he saw for anything but what it was.
For the first time since waking, she dared to touch her stomach. I am sorry, my child.
Gorban spoke to Jacob as his wife, Peth, cleaned his wound and bandaged it with linen. “Your father is no different from us.”
“What does the son of a murderer know?” Jacob said.
“Your father has murdered too.”
“You speak nonsense.”
Eve entered with a small container of wine, several cups, and some of the last bits of stale bread and a handful of nuts. After hearing of Calebna’s reaction, she had rushed off in grim silence to prepare refreshments for Sarah and Gorban. Now she knelt beside Sarah, who accepted a portion of the bread and a cup of wine with a nod before Eve took the rest to Gorban.
“Calebna refused to tend to the wounded,” Gorban continued, ignoring what Eve placed beside him. “Has he not then pronounced judgment?”
Jacob rubbed his fingers and frowned.
Terah grabbed Jacob’s face. “Think, son.”
He pushed her hands away.
“Calebna plans to purchase his safety by sacrificing us.” Gorban continued.
Eve laid her hand on Gorban’s and said, “Peace, son of my son. You must rest.” She glanced at Jacob. “We have stirred up enough strife. Let us pray instead and be silent.”
35
After Eve led them in the prayer for safety and guidance, Jacob sat thinking of the sounds he heard while gazing at the Fog with his father. Words came disjointed and yet connected in ways that he knew held meaning.
“The world is dying … a holy thing, never to be spoken by unclean lips, never to be heard by evil ears … remind us who we are … our true nature … do you still want to be like me? … he is not Cain … those differences serve a purpose … we all have a role to fill … in the spring of life, I will let passion spring forth … am I willing to join … ?”
Jacob swallowed and let his soul embrace rebellion. It felt righteous. It felt holy. He wondered, Is this what Cain felt as he murdered my grandfather?
The blood on the floor of the Temple smelled rank. Lives should not be wasted with such impunity. This, at least, I know is evil.
So am I to turn to evil to fight evil?
His mother’s body shook as she leaned into him again. She believed her brothers were out there, and Father would not let Jacob leave, no matter the truth. Jacob had seen changes come over Father, and the fears he suppressed only a few hours ago returned. If what they said was true, Father had embraced a God that Jacob never could—one devoid of mercy.
It would take no violence. It would demand no violation of his vow.
“We all have a role to fill …”
Jacob set his jaw, steadied his mother and pushed her away. Her breath caught as she looked up. Gorban stared, and despite the bitter words they traded only moments before, Jacob felt a connection with him he’d never had. He nodded, and Gorban’s eyebrows crouched, but Jacob offered no explanation. He simply straightened, walked toward the door, and fulfilled his role.
The sounds were so dense Mason could almost smell them. Sensations from battles long past broke forth as he rubbed his blood-crusted fingers together. The air in his lungs felt more like scraping teeth than Fog, but his legs stretched on, smashing the ground like cedar trees. He ran over fallen Jinn, popping their ribs beneath his callused feet and leaving massive impressions in the blood-soaked earth.
Piercing cries mixed into the sounds ahead. He had seen so few human bodies littering the battlefield, and that gave him hope, though only a little, and so he prayed. In the midst of the madness, when no other man truly believed, he prayed to the Almighty because he knew the Almighty had never died.
But how could a mute speak of the wondrous mysteries of God? How could a voiceless man sing of the Glorious Intervention ordained before the Spirit’s breath buffeted the formless waters? Before the Word spoke and earth and fire and body and soul rolled off his tongue and into its habitation? Before Adam tasted sin, death, pain, and loss? Before Cain, his own father, murdered Abel?
Indeed, his task was not to speak, but to lay a foundation for the One to come. So he ran, and he fought, and he listened to the voice from his dreams, as he had from the very beginning when he found his mother half drowned in the storm.
Most of all, he prayed.
Jacob had never seen so many corpses.
What am I doing out here? He wiped his face.
The Fog hung over the battlefield as if Time itself were suspended. Here, nothing moved. No life. Only faint sound in the distance, and he made his way toward it. He passed mangled bodies and checked them to make sure they weren’t Philo or Tuor. One was Mellore, Kiile’s second oldest. The other was marred beyond recognition. Nei
ther moved.
Jacob walked on, jumping over piled carcasses and splashing through bloody grass. The bodies became fewer and soon failed altogether. He closed his eyes to shut out the world and feel safe again.
Speak to me. Give me a sign. If it be your will that I go farther, I will, but I need to know. Are you dead like everyone says?
His ringing ears strained. Had he heard something or was it only his imagination? He held his breath and waited, scanning the white for sound or sight.
Then there were footsteps, approaching hard and fast. His heart raced and he twisted to flee, but instead slipped in the blood.
The footsteps slowed. It was Lukian, and swinging at his side was a bloody hammer. He held what looked like a dead body, and upon seeing Jacob, he stopped and studied him.
Jacob scrambled up and took a step closer to the body in Lukian’s arms, searching the face. Recognition burned the nape of his neck, and he closed his eyes, wondering if he would vomit.
“It is he,” Lukian said.
“And what of Tuor?”
“Torn to shreds and cold to the touch. I found them together, but could carry only one.”
Jacob began to weep. “Please, lead me to Tuor.”
“It is too dangerous.”
“It could not be far.”
“I will not take the risk. You shouldn’t be out here unarmed.”
Jacob noted a strange twitching under Lukian’s right eye, but said, “May I carry Philo home?”
Lukian approached and set Philo in Jacob’s arms, and Jacob dipped his head in respect. He thought about thanking him but instead turned, said a short prayer, and began carrying his father’s dead brother back.
Lukian did not follow.
Jacob glanced back, barely able to see Lukian’s motionless shape through the Fog.
“What will you do?” Jacob asked.
“I must stay.”
“What is out there?”
“Go!”
Tears burned Jacob’s eyes, but despite his desire to stay and fight beside the man who had retrieved his uncle’s body, he brought Philo to the Temple.
His tomb.
36
The hammer hung in both of Lukian’s hands as he gripped it with a resurrected fury. He hungered for violence as deeply as a desert dweller thirsted for water.
Gillian. My son.
He bit his cheek.
The desire …
He couldn’t trust himself to help the wounded. At the very least, he had made an impression on Jacob, and hopefully the boy would aid him in making an impression on the others. When the battle was over, he would need them. He only hoped this deadly desire wouldn’t continue mounting.
Almighty, don’t let it grow.
First he would end Calebna and any others responsible for the death of his children. Had they come to help, fewer men would have died, and maybe Gillian would still be beside him.
The time for peace has ended. The time for violence has begun. Once Calebna is out of the way, they all will follow me. It is survival, evolution, progression.
But what about Jacob? The boy was different. He had risked his life for Philo, and yet he had shown his weakness through tears.
A scream opened the Fog before him like a screeching gate. He sprinted forward, the path lit by dull gray light. Ahead, a mass roiled like dark waves on a pale shore, but soon more details leapt into the light. It was a throng of Jinn, possibly one hundred or more, arranged in a circle around what he could only guess was the final bastion of Lukian’s brothers and nephews.
Lukian poised his hammer low and leaned forward, bursting into a sprint. He lifted his hammer high and reveled in the crack of hammer against skull. He spread the beasts and glimpsed Machael fighting alongside his sons from the inside. Machael’s eyes widened as he slashed a Jinn’s arms off at the elbows and his boys opened up a path for him. Lukian rejoined and saw Kiile, though the man’s youngest and oldest were gone.
Together the brothers and sons fought, and the demons fell like insects. Lukian noticed beasts turning in confusion. Then, bursting through the ranks, came Mason, crushing skulls with stone-hard knuckles. He split three heads in five strikes, then joined the group.
“You’re late,” Lukian said.
Mason peered into Lukian’s eyes, and Lukian looked at the blood dripping from Mason’s fingers. The red juice drew him, but with a glance up at Mason, he saw the man’s eyes glint.
Lukian lifted his hammer, feeling its weight like never before. But with Mason at his side, and Machael and Kiile and their children, he would bathe in blood until he drowned.
“You should have left Philo outside the Temple,” Calebna said as he resealed the Temple with iron bars. To Jacob, he looked bent and aged, more a vulture than a man, and the lines about his mouth ran deeper than his frown.
“How could I?” Jacob said.
“Holiness is only difficult to those who deny its power.” Calebna’s eyes strayed to Gorban, whose leg was bandaged. Then he looked at Philo, whose skin was paler than the stone he lay upon.
There was long silence. Philo’s wounds no longer bled, and one simple, inescapable fact bound their tongues. He was dead. Jacob couldn’t stop wondering when it happened. He wanted to know the moment, the spot he had stood upon when the boy’s soul left his body. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Calebna’s contempt burned to the center of his chest. “I think he might have died in Lukian’s arms.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“At least Lukian had the kindness to bring Philo back.” Jacob didn’t know why he was defending Lukian, but something about his father’s demeanor made him bristle.
Calebna’s eyes twitched, and Jacob wondered if his father would strike him. “Philo disowned us.”
“Philo died protecting us,” Terah said.
Calebna glanced from Jacob to Terah, who returned his glare. Calebna sucked his teeth and nodded. “I see.” He laughed and looked at the ceiling. “This is what you give me? A family of cowards?”
Eve was adjusting Sarah’s cushions, but stood. “Cowardice? Is that what you think this is?”
Terah’s face was red, and her hands were balled into fists by her side. “With every word you sound more like Lukian.”
“I am the High Priest, the intermediary between you and the flames of Judgment.”
“And what of you? Who will judge you? Are there no consequences for your decisions?” Eve said.
Calebna’s eyes darkened. “I have maintained my integrity in the face of death, but who might I turn to when I cannot trust my son? My wife? I do not envy the violence stored up for you in the depths of eternity.”
Terah scoffed and fell silent.
Jacob’s face chilled. He said in a low voice, “For years I have feared your shame, but now you have won mine.”
Gorban raised his voice, pointing at Calebna. “Cain killed one, but you’ve done better. You’ve offered us all at your altar.”
Calebna slammed his fist into the wall. “I’m the servant of God!” He no longer hid his contempt. “As the Almighty spoke, ‘Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.’”
“I pray you never feel the sting of your words,” Eve said.
Jacob turned and urged his mother out of the vestibule, though she remained in place.
“Now,” Calebna continued with finger pointing at Gorban, “their violence falls on others as well. We have no hope apart from the Almighty. If everyone had only listened to me, none of this would have happened. If Philo hadn’t been—”
Terah said, “I take back my words.”
“Come,” Jacob said. “Let’s go.”
Terah struggled against Jacob and threw her words like javelins. “You’re not a good man. You’re not a man at all.”
“What’s going on? Why are t
hey just standing there?” Kiile said.
Lukian held his hammer outstretched.
“Why aren’t they attacking?”
“Quiet,” Lukian said.
The Jinn were still. Deep in the Fog footsteps crunched gravel, and the Jinn parted. A shape moved toward them, dark and slender amidst the beasts.
“Great Almighty,” Kiile muttered. “Is that … ?”
Lukian dropped his hammer.
A man strode toward them, and the Fog peeled from his gray skin as if he were formed from it.
It is an apparition, a ghost, Lukian thought.
But it was real. Too real.
The man nodded and spoke to Lukian in that familiar, resonant bass, “Hello, Son.”
PART SEVEN :
BEYOND THE SANDS OF TIME
You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
You were perfect in your ways from the day you
were created,
Till iniquity was found in you.
—EZEKIEL 28:12–15 NKJV
37
Waves rush past and slide the man across the Sands, some of which grind between his teeth while he hovers in the twilight of Time. He is stuck on the edge of awareness, floating. Just floating. The peace tugs him toward rest, and yet the pink glare of Light through his eyelids pains him. His head thumps against a boulder, and he opens his eyes with a moan.
Cain: The Story of the First Murder and the Birth of an Unstoppable Evil Page 16