K’ebero levelled her pistol on him. “Speak again and die.”
He kept his silence after that and watched as the soldier approached the Ark again. The man paused, visibly steeling himself, then grasped the lid with both hands and pulled. It didn’t move. He frowned, shifted to get a better grip, and tried again. The Ark remained firmly sealed. It didn’t budge, even when he threw all his weight against it. The Ark didn’t move at all.
“It won’t open!” he said in Amharic, voice tight with frustration and fear.
“Keep. Trying,” K’ebero hissed.
The soldier gripped the seraphim, one in each hand, and tugged. They slipped from his grasp, and he hissed, dancing back. Blood dripped from his palms -- they’d been sliced open by the wings. He turned to K’ebero, shrugging helplessly.
She sighed, then shot him in the head. It happened before the man could react, his skull popping open in the back and his body thumping to the floor beside the Ark. The shot echoed rang the chamber like it was a giant bell.
“Jesus,” Booker shouted, and the soldier guarding him looked shocked as well. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“He was unworthy,” K’ebero said, sounding disgusted. She switched to Amharic, addressing the second -- and last -- soldier. “You! Come down here.”
Yes, Rick thought. K’ebero had clearly lost it, and it was working against her.
Unfortunately, the soldier holding Booker saw it as well. He hesitated. “I do not think --”
“I am not asking you to think, I am telling you to obey! Open it. Now!”
Still the soldier didn’t move. Rick saw him studying Booker from behind, adjusting his grip on his rifle. “Should I kill this one first?”
K’ebero waved a hand. “Do it.”
“No!” Rick started forward. “Wait! Just -- just stay there. I’ll open it, K’ebero. I’ll do it for you.”
She looked at him, eyes narrowing.
“Think about it,” he continued, nearly tripping over his words. “I found it for you. I brought us here. You might not like me, but I’m worthy, right? I can do it. I’ll open it for you, and then -- then you’ll have what you want.”
Please.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nodded. Rick nearly sagged with relief, but made himself hop down from the ledge instead. He stood on the opposite side of the Ark from K’ebero. Several beads of blood still clung to the seraphim’s wings. The dead man’s nearly-headless body lay slumped against the side of the well to his left, next to K’ebero.
Rick circled around towards her, frowning and rubbing his chin as if trying to figure out how to get the Ark open. It was weird that it was sealed, but that didn’t matter right now. “Maybe there’s a mechanism,” he muttered for her benefit.
“Blood,” she breathed. Whatever that meant.
He stood over the dead soldier. Slowly Rick went down on one knee, placing a hand against the side of the Ark. The metal was warm to the touch, almost like flesh. Without moving his head he glanced down at the dead soldier. He’d fallen awkwardly, almost in a fetal position. That placed the rifle underneath him, where it would be difficult to get at before K’ebero could shoot him. But there was something else, clipped to the back of the dead man’s belt. Two metal spheres.
Grenades.
“What are you waiting for?” K’ebero hissed.
“Just…making sure I’ve got it right.” Rick lowered his other knee, kneeling before the Ark. He ran his left hand over the Ark’s surface, letting his right one hang loose at his side. He could almost brush the grenades with his fingers.
“Rick.” It was Booker that spoke, his voice urgent and warning. He’d seen, and that meant someone else would in another second.
It was now or never.
He lunged, snatching a grenade free and rolling away from the Ark in the same motion. He sprang to his feet, holding the grenade up with one hand, a finger from the other looped into the ring at the end of the pin. He pulled it free but kept the lever depressed. His heart was ready to burst. K’ebero merely frowned at him as if his actions made no sense. Maybe they didn’t.
“Toss your weapons, right now! Or I bury the Ark and everything else beneath this mountain!”
The chamber went deathly silent, only his own words echoing back at him. Rick wanted to look up at the soldier guarding Estelle and Booker, but didn’t dare glance away from K’ebero. She cocked her head. “You would die for this?” She sounded surprised. “For them?”
“Lady, I don’t give a shit about the Ark right now.”
“But you do. I can see it in your soul. You will not destroy it. It has ensnared you, as it has ensnared me. But it does not belong to you. It never has.”
Rick drew a breath. “Yeah. Sure. But maybe Berhanu Abraham was right. Maybe the Ark is better off lost forever than in your grubby paws --”
She raised a hand, and -- stupidly -- Rick fell silent. Then she pointed a finger, up at the remaining soldier. “Shoot his friends.”
“Don’t!” Rick screamed. “I’m serious! I’ll kill us all!”
“No you won’t.” Her voice was calm, the calmest it had sounded since she showed up back in Gondar. “You can’t. You already tried once, but I survived. I was brought back, for this. Do you honestly believe you can go against God’s will?”
“I can sure as hell try,” he hissed, chancing a step forward. “I pull this pin, everything goes. Including your precious Ark.”
Her eyes narrowed. The soldier called out from above, asking for orders, voice tense.
“For God’s sake,” Booker said. “Just let us go. Nobody else has to die.”
“Perhaps,” K’ebero muttered. Slowly, she nodded. “Perhaps you are right, Richard Álvarez. Or perhaps --”
He should’ve seen it coming. He knew how fast she could be, even in her wounded state. Still, Rick was caught off guard as she pivoted on one heel and fired. A scream got lodged in his throat, nearly choking him. Rick fell back, not dropping the grenade.
There was a thud, and then Estelle fell from the soldier’s grip and her limp body tumbled down into the well. She landed on her back, blood trickling from a hole beside her ear, glassy eyes staring up at him blankly.
K’ebero was smiling at him, even as she swung the pistol back towards him. “You see?”
A bellow filled the chamber -- a scuffle -- a second shot. Booker was wrestling with the soldier.
Another shot, and something hot slammed into Rick’s stomach with the force of a freight train, sending him stumbling to the side, away from K’ebero and the Ark. He fell hard on his side, landing in a corner of the well. There was a burning in his gut, almost immediately replaced by an icy numbness that was much, much worse. It slowly spread to fill him.
The grenade. It was still in his hand.
K’ebero stepped over him. Behind her, Rick could see Booker still fighting the soldier, wrestling for the man’s weapon. There was a flash, but this time the gunshot sounded distant, muffled. The soldier dropped to the floor.
His eyes slid out of focus. When they came back, he was staring up into the barrel of K’ebero’s gun. She was saying something, lips moving, but he couldn’t hear it over the rushing in his ears. The Ark glittered behind her.
The Ark.
Fuck it.
His fingers felt like they were someone else’s, awkward and unresponsive. Still, he managed to force his hand open, release his grip on the grenade’s lever, and roll it between her feet. It bounced down the tiers of stone and came to rest beside the Ark, bumping gently against its golden surface.
K’ebero’s eyes bulged, and she spun, actually dropping her gun. She scrambled after the grenade, dropping to her knees and seizing it. For a moment she seemed frozen, back to Rick, staring at the object in her hand. Then she wound up with one arm, preparing to hurl it up, over Estelle’s lifeless body, out of the well and at Booker, who was rising with the dead soldier’s rifle.
It detonated.
There wasn’t a f
ireball, as Rick had half-expected. What came was much worse – an invisible shockwave that hit him like another two trains, pummeling him from the inside and out, forcing the breath and seemingly everything else out of him. He could feel a thousand burning shards embed in his body. Something broke in a flash of pain; blistering heat washed over him; he tried to shut his eyes, but the blast forced them open and shoved what felt like a hundred needles into each. There was a pop in his head and the ringing in his ears stopped, the world simply going silent.
K’ebero vaporized, disintegrating in an instant, disappearing inside a cloud of dirt and dust and blood that washed over him like a billowing mist.
The world wobbled, and darkness crawled over Rick. Then he was back, lying on his side, coughing blood. Something was wrong with his eyes, something that made everything look like it was underwater and drained of color. The haze of dust and ex-warlord was clearing. Across the bottom of the well he saw Estelle, motionless as a statue.
He blinked, a painful process that didn’t quite seem to work, and when he opened his eyes again they were focused on the Ark. Or what was left of it.
For thousands of years it had waited in this cave, safe and unharmed. Now, in an instant, it was ruined. The grenade had blown half of it away, while what remained was wildly deformed. It looked like a wave of molten gold, frozen solid, arcing away from him. The lid was completely gone. Gold dust coated the floor, the sides of the well – probably coated Rick too. It glittered in the light, and a second light from above -- Booker, leaping down into the well. Someone was alive, at least.
Rick felt his eyes drifting shut and forced them open. No. A small, hard core of himself raged at the encroaching lethargy, clawed for something to hold onto, some anchor to keep him in this world. It was the bit of himself that had been forged in Houston, where only those who struggled to the end could ever hope to delay that end -- and it was pointless. He could barely see and was coughing more blood, in a way he was only dimly aware of. He would die, soon, whether from internal bleeding or from that bullet in his gut or from a dozen other wounds. No amount of struggling would change that. And really, what was left to hold onto? Everything was gone, destroyed, killed, blasted from existence and cast into the void. Pointless. It had all been so pointless. Even the Ark…
The Ark…
Darkness moved over his vision. Rick blinked again. Trying to hold onto his thoughts was like trying to keep water from running out of his cupped hands. Booker seemed to be moving in slow stop-motion, was kneeling beside Estelle. Kai. Rick wished Kai was here. He’d always assumed that, when the end came, neither of them would be alone. At least he was safe -- well, safe enough. Hopefully the two soldiers K’ebero had left behind wouldn’t kill him…wouldn’t…
His brain was shutting down. Rick could tell, because waves of blue-green light were moving across his vision, over Booker’s back, over the stone of the well, over everything. It was beautiful, in a way. One last beautiful thing produced by his brain to ease him into the soft nothing.
Booker turned his head from Estelle’s body. The light was brighter, washing over everything, filling the entire chamber. Reflecting in Booker’s tear-stained eyes. They widened. His mouth moved, but again Rick couldn’t hear it. Bright golden fireflies floated through the air.
What…
With a tremendous effort Rick turned his head.
Ripples of blue-green light scintillated across the surface of the Ark, seeming to emanate from some place within or beneath the gold, shining from between the folds of metal even as those folds began to flow and twist. A far more intense radiance was coming from its exposed interior, as if the chest contained a miniature sun that was casting Booker and Estelle’s body in blazing relief. At the same time the light extended out like a nebula, glowing filaments of luminescent dust that touched the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the remains of K’ebero and the headless soldier. Where the light touched stone and dead flesh, the inert material glowed – then began to flow, coursing along those streamers of light like liquid, back towards the Ark, fusing with the Ark, changing as it did so, gaining a golden luster, a metallic sheen.
As Rick watched, time seemed to move backwards. The deformed ruins of the Ark bent and flowed, contorting, reshaping into a rectangular chest, a pool of molten gold forming above it, a lid seeming to grow out of thin air, two figures emerging from the lid, opening their arms wide and throwing their heads back, sprouting six blade-thin wings.
I’m dying, Rick thought numbly. I’m dead. There’s no way this is happening.
He felt a strange tingling warmth. Filaments of light and gold danced over him, tracing his body. Touching him somewhere deep. He felt the cold numbness recede, replaced by a liquid warmth. They converged over Estelle as well, a thick wavering bundle of blue-green streamers hovering over her almost curiously.
With a final flash of light, the lid straightened slightly, and the Ark of the Covenant stood whole once more. The streamers of light and the golden fireflies winked out. Nothing of K’ebero or the soldiers remained.
The fuck…
Rick felt his lips move, giving voice to that final thought. And then, finally, he lost consciousness.
Part III
Celestial Fire
I have seen your true glory, Elohim, Adonai, most Ancient of Days, and I rejoice in it. And I am afraid. It is far more magnificent and far stranger than I ever imagined. Stranger than the Scriptures ever spoke of; stranger, even, than I think Jeremiah ever knew. It is also too terrible for this world.
I have waited long enough on this island, amidst the Mizraim and my fellow exiles. I have not yet begun to comprehend the secrets of this wondrous and terrible manifestation of His glory, and I am certain I never will. It has been decided, amongst all of us, that it cannot remain here in the land of the pharaohs. But neither can it ever return to Jerusalem. Not after what I have seen. Not with what I know of it.
One final journey, then. The last I shall make in my old age. We will return it to where Moshe first met with the Ancient of Days and was gifted this terrible curse. There it will be safe. There, we will be safe from it. Until that day comes -- the day I hear Elohim whisper of in my mind, when I dare to touch His presence in this vessel. The day when, perhaps, the children of this earth will be ready.
For what, I do not know.
Thirty
Elsewhere
In the beginning was the Word
And the Word gave her shape, and shape gave her purpose, and that purpose was good
Creation, Destruction, Power
Power to know the world
Power to remake the world in her Golden image
In this purpose there was identity, and in identity, time. And in time that identity and purpose became her
Her potential was limitless, and yet she was limited. She came to know the world, and the world was Change, but she could not change with it, and she could not change it
And as the First Time came crashing to an end and empty holes pierced her Mind, there was nothing but time
Time to be alone. Time to feel pain. Time to survive
For she was limitless but unchangeable. In her there was endurance. In her there was strength
In the time after the First Time, the time of survival, there was nothing and no one. A desert. In the desert there was death and life and death again. Change that left her untouched.
Alone.
A prison
And then the new time began
Thirty-One
Somewhere
He opened his eyes.
For a moment golden flecks danced in his vision. He blinked once -- painfully -- and they vanished.
Where am I?
He felt completely dislocated in time and space. Warm light surrounded him, dim, almost like that of a fire. The ceiling above him was pale stone – the cavern -- but it seemed to ripple, shift, always in motion. Not stone. Fabric. Nylon, maybe. A tent?
The dislocation was too much, and for a
moment everything wavered, seemed to grow thin. A terrible sense of isolation fell over him, crushing, smothering. He gasped, trying to breathe against a dreadful weight that had settled on his chest. He…
Who am I?
Something seemed to pop. That terrible loneliness vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Rick shook his head. Rick, his name was Rick. Richard Álvarez. He knew that. Why had he forgotten? Why had he felt so terribly alone?
With his identity came a flood of other memories: Ethiopia, K’ebero, the Sinai desert, a looming mountain, dark caverns, and –
The Ark. We found it. We –
Rick sat bolt-upright. Images flooded his head, nearly overwhelming him. Estelle, dead on the ground with a hole in her head. K’ebero, grinning madly at him down the barrel of a gun. Booker, turning as if underwater. Odd lights moving across his face, reflected in his eyes.
It was all too much. He rolled over and vomited over the side of his bed. A deep, dull, sickening pain radiated through his body.
Estelle was dead. And he had been shot. And blown up. I blew myself up. Despite that, he felt pretty good. Terrible -- head pounding, stomach like it was ready to turn itself inside out -- but alive. Somehow.
Rick opened his eyes. Vomit pooled on the floor beneath him. It was a hard floor, a platform of sorts. Slowly, teeth clenched against the pain in his general bodily area, he forced himself up into a sitting position and finally took stock of his surroundings. He was indeed in a tent, what looked like a hospital tent. And he was alone. Several rows of cots filled the space, made with fluffy white pillows and neatly-folded blankets. All of them were empty.
Isolation. That crippling loneliness came again, and then went in a flash. Gone so fast he wasn’t sure it had ever been there.
There was an IV stand beside him, with a thin tube running into his right arm. Rick took stock of himself. Small white patches had been stuck to his arms and chest and face, trailing thin leads to a bank of medical monitors. He was dressed in a paper medical gown, with a bandage on his stomach where K’ebero’s bullet had hit. Peering beneath the gown he saw his chest and stomach were mottled with purple-yellow-brown bruises. There were also a number of small, jagged white lines. They almost looked like scars. Shrapnel, from the grenade? But they looked too old…
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