Empire's End (19 page)

I rocked on all fours, unable to stand. What was I to do? I couldn't leave all these people, these bodies, to rot in the sun. But how could I bury them all?
God, help me!
Beyond the heinousness of it, the scope of the task overwhelmed me. I had to make myself face this, search for anyone who might have survived, someone who could tell me anything.

I struggled to my feet and the blood rushed from my head, making me nearly topple again. The black plumes roiled away and the flames tapered, but the heat was every bit as intense because of the unrelenting sun. With only Nadav and Anna's tent for reference, I moved to where I could turn slowly and take stock of the catastrophe. I had long been a man of action and method, breaking my tasks into manageable steps and approaching them with logic and dispatch. It struck me as sacrilege to treat this odious responsibility the way I would have an assignment from my superior at the Sanhedrin just a few years before, but I knew no other way to maintain my sanity. If I allowed myself an instant more to dwell on the awful reality, I would render myself useless.

The livestock pens and the corral fences were fading embers, the manure piles clumps of white ash. Many animals were smoking carcasses. Others had been hacked to pieces, proving the marauders had brandished long, heavy blades.

The well appeared untouched, its rope intact. I shook out my mantle, rolled it up, stuffed it in the bucket, and lowered it to the water. I pulled it up and wrung it out over my head, then put it on and headed to Nadav's tent, calling for anyone who might be inside. It was empty. Of everything.

Why had none of us understood the significance of Nadav's wife's decorations? He had brought the Romans to find me, but they were not to touch the home that bore images matching those on their own banners and flags. Why he would not have told them I would be in the wilderness, I would never fathom. No surprise, I found no evidence of harm to Nadav
or his wife or children or their belongings. Not only were they spared, they were also apparently allowed to escape.

I couldn't help but hope our paths would cross someday.

The wind that had begun before dawn finally dissipated, but the sun strengthened, and soon my mantle was damp from only my sweat. I began the grisly business of checking the victims among the children. Pushing to the recesses of my mind the possibility of finding Corydon or Alastor or, God forbid, my beloved, I carefully studied the clothing and sandals and hair and coloring of the little ones who had been so savagely laid waste. I set my jaw and choked back tears as I recognized the faces of many of Corydon's playmates. I dreaded discovering him.

Between the piles of ashes and rubble where Zuriel and Kaia's tent once stood, I found the big man hanging and wondered how many brave Romans it took to pin him aloft. I would have wagered he made them work until he breathed his last, as that old face bore a dogged expression, even in repose.

I fashioned a teetering stair-step from scraps and found a tool with which I hacked away at the spikes in his hands until the thickset body crumpled and hung awkwardly by his feet. When I finally freed him and he dropped in a heap, I wept afresh at the task ahead. While Zuriel was the biggest of the men I would have to remove from crosses thus, I realized I had underestimated the job and would likely be there till sundown.

Not far from Zuriel's cross was that of a smaller man's, curiously festooned with a garish red drape that must have come from a soldier's uniform. Because this was the only victim thus adorned, I moved close to see who it was and found the dark body decapitated. But from the missing little finger of the left hand, I recognized the new man, Brunon. I couldn't make sense of it.

Determined to retrieve his body later, I could no longer put off the
inevitable. While in a search of bodies in that area I found poor Kaia. I confess that when Taryn did not appear among the victims I began to harbor hope that she might have somehow escaped. I knew in my heart of hearts I was only imagining it, but in my despair I clung to the fiction.

Finally I dragged my fragile contraption to what was left of Alastor's tent. I had seen the cross looming nearby and knew it had to bear his cherished frame, but now I had to face the reality of it. The raiders had not even bothered to remove the old man's sandals, and as I stood before his death tree, his feet rested near my chest. I placed my hands gently over them. “Oh, Rabbi,” I whispered.

I jumped back when one of his feet twitched, and I stared up at him. His long hair covered much of his face, but he appeared to peer at me between the strands. Had the old man raised an eyebrow?

I dragged my step close and leapt atop it, bringing my head even with the crosspiece. I slung an arm over it to steady myself, but the cross wasn't much more secure than my footstool and I feared everything would come crashing down.

When I finally felt stable I swept the mass of tangled hair from Alastor's face and he squinted up at me, a wheeze coming from deep in his throat. “You're alive!” I said. “Let me get you down!”

“No!” he rasped. “I'm used up. Just hear me, please.”

“But you can't breathe! Let me—”

“Paul!” he whispered desperately. “I'm almost gone. Come close. I must tell you.”

I repositioned myself so my ear was by his mouth, but I heard nothing. The wheeze had disappeared, and I felt no air from him.
Lord, no
, I whined.
Not now
.

“The general,” he breathed at last.

“The general? Yes, what?”

“Decimus something. Saw her. Wanted her.”

Decimus Balbus?
“Wanted Taryn? Didn't kill her?” He managed a slight nod. “She's safe? Alive?”

“She told him no.”

“She what?”

“She said, ‘Kill me or take my son, too.'”

“She did? And so he took them both?”

“Took them both.”

“Oh, praise God! Good for her!”

“Paul, no! It's a fate worse than death.”

“Don't say that. As long as she's alive there's hope for her, and for Corydon. Now let's get you down.”

“No. I'm gone. Listen to me.”

“There's more?”

“The general mistook Brunon for you.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes. He thinks you're dead.”

“Poor Brunon. Alastor, listen. Was it General Decimus Calidius Balbus?”

He nodded, gasping, looking incredulous. “You know him?”

“I know of him.”

His death rattle had begun. “Inside tunic. Under my arm.”

“What, brother? Which arm? Alastor? Rabbi?”

I pressed my ear to his chest, felt his neck, then his wrist. My dear friend was no more.

I held my cheek against his.

Curious as I was, I would not defile him by searching him as he hung there. I reversed the order I had used to detach Zuriel from the wood and found Alastor much more manageable than the bigger man. I carried him
gingerly over my shoulder and gently laid him on the ground near where we had spent so many afternoons together.

I found the small spade I had used to dig the hole for my parchments and took nearly half an hour carving a space in the ground for him. I whispered, “Forgive me, friend” and reached up under his sleeve until I found a torn fragment of parchment that had been rolled and folded.

Hands shaking, I opened it.

Forgiven and loved
.

Taryn

I hung my head and wept.

And the Lord spoke to me.

Bury your friend and make your way to the trade route
.

But Lord, all the others
 . . .

Precious in My sight are the deaths of My saints. Leave them to me
.

I laid Alastor's body in the ground and covered it, overwhelmed at the simple truth God had tried to teach me just three days previous.
The ministry I am entrusting to you will be birthed soon, not in joy but in pain
. I thought He meant I would face anger, opposition, hunger, poverty, hardship. But by “pain” He meant pain.

Every time He asked whether I was truly willing to become His bondservant, I had assured Him I was. Fortunately, He had not revealed the full measure of the cost.

I walked tentatively through the rubble of Alastor's tent, the meager furniture but ashes now, pottery shards scattered. Charred hardwood ends of the cherished scrolls were all that was left of the sacred Scriptures.

The covering I had created for the hole in my sleeping area had largely disintegrated, but my hide satchel lay unscathed. I slipped the treasured
note from Taryn inside, pulled it over my shoulder by the newly attached strap, and remembered I was to take nothing else—neither money nor provisions. The Romans had rendered that instruction moot.

I was to leave to the Lord the saints who had been ambushed. It didn't feel right, but if I couldn't trust Him with that, with what could I trust Him?

I stepped out front of where I had first seen Taryn just shy of three years before, peeking warily at me over the top of her veil with a protective arm around her son. I had won her, lost her, won her, and now lost her again. With every fiber of my being I longed to search for her to the ends of the earth and exact revenge for the lives of my brothers and sisters from General Balbus—not to mention the betrayer from our midst.

But God reminded me that my course had been set. I was a bondservant, sworn to obey my Master.

Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; his foot shall slip in due time. I will avenge the blood of My servants and render vengeance to My adversaries. I will provide atonement for My land and My people
.

Bone-weary and oily with sweat, streaked with soot and empty of tears, I labored up to where Theo had delivered me after the miraculous chase across Arabia three years before. Then I had gazed from the overlook upon the gathering of threadbare tents that comprised Yanbu before being startled by the voice of Alastor. Now I looked out upon the smoking ruins of a putrid necropolis.

I felt the stark tension of knowing I was to leave, to begin the next season of my life, and yet I could barely move. I loved God, trusted Him, believed Him sovereign. It warred against everything in me to question Him, and yet I had to wonder at His purpose for allowing so thorough an annihilation of my previous existence. Why did all these people have to die?

You hate the man who betrayed his friends and neighbors
.

Forgive me, I do, Lord. I know I am to pray for my enemies, but it is not within me to pray for Nadav or Anna today
.

You hate the man who led this attack
.

I do, and I know his name
.

Such were you
.

I never
—

Such were you
.

—
slaughtered women and children. Crucified men. Torched villages
.

Such were you. You persecuted Me. You terrorized the people called by My name. You had them arrested, imprisoned, put to death. You stole husbands and fathers from wives and children. You were looked upon the way you look upon your enemy today. You held the cloaks of those who stoned to death an innocent man. Such were you
.

Such was I. Forgive me
.

Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more
.

Forgive me, Lord
.

Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more
.

I am unworthy
.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has My Father removed your transgressions from you. Now observe as He proves He has surely seen the oppression of His people. And now I command you, as I commanded Moses of old, take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground
.

I pulled the bag over my head and off my shoulder and stepped out of my sandals. The cloudless sky that had been sullied by grimy smoke suddenly darkened and lightning flashed. I went from being as hot as I'd been since arriving in the desert to as cold as I'd ever been and gathered my mantle around my neck, hunching my shoulders.

A single lightning bolt struck the middle of the ravaged camp with such power that the earth shook, and the resounding thunderclap came so quickly it deafened me and a heavy downpour began. It had been so long since I'd seen rain, it startled me as much as the lightning and thunder had, and as I stood there it washed me head to toe, black residue collecting at my feet and floating away.

Part of me wanted to turn and run and never look back, but in another way I hardly wanted to blink. I gazed over the tiny outpost I never would have found, had God Himself not delivered me there. So much had happened in the camp that I found it hard to believe it had been real. As the cool, clear water cascaded down my face, I thought of all the friendships, the prayers, the meals, and the daily meetings with the Lord.

Slowly I sat and lowered my head, my tears mixing with the rain. When the downpour stopped, my body, my tunic, my mantle, even my sandals and parchment bag were clean. I checked the contents and found everything dry, but still I sat weeping until I sobbed.

Why, Lord? Help me understand
.

Go
.

Must I?
I knew the answer, of course. Why did I ask? Would I never learn? But could I not have even a moment to grieve, to mourn what I had lost?

As quickly as the sky had darkened it cleared and the sun reappeared, and within minutes, I was dry, as were my clothes. I sat stunned. As usual, God would not repeat Himself. He had told me to go, and were I to wait much longer, I would be disobedient.

I reached for my sandals and they felt new on my feet, but as I steadied myself, the rock shifted as the entire site below me, the place of my abode for the last three years—crosses, rubble, bodies, everything—folded
over and under itself as the earth split, rose, and covered it like a massive lump of dough kneaded by expert hands.

All I could do was sit and watch, mouth agape, as the earthquake came and vanished. Finally I stood, my sandals warm and supple from the sun, and took one last look at the barren plain below.