Temple Boys (26 page)

The Results Man sighed. “All right. I'll tell you. Death. We are all going to die—or rather, we
were
all going to die—and what better place to conquer death than in this ridiculous, death-ridden city? How many times has it been destroyed and its people killed? How many times have they come back?” He winked. The effect was vile. “Now, that's what I call power. Imagine an army that can't be killed. Chop 'em down and up they jump. You've got to admit it's an exciting proposition.”

“So if there's an uprising and the Romans are killed…”

“They come back to life! If I can find out what the secret is.” The Results Man winked again.

Flea's mind jerked into motion. “But if you put down the uprising and kill everyone in the city and they come back to life…?”

“I don't care, because by then I'll know what the secret is. Immortality. Eternal life. Not just a big secret but the biggest secret of all. I'll get out of here with my secret, with the power, and I'll conquer every part of this world. I can leave this place be. I can afford to.”

“But it's going to be a whole new world…”

The Results Man smiled horribly. “And I fully intend to rule in that one too. If I can lead an immortal legion into Rome, they'll have no choice. I will be the master. I will be the emperor. I will be the Lord. I will be God. You see, Flea? You should have stuck by me. Me, God. You, God's helper. Super Flea. Flea the Powerful. Too late now. You've shown me where your loyalties lie and that they'll never change.”

“But what have we got to do with that? We don't have to go to the tombs, surely?” Flea pleaded.

“If that's where Yeshua is coming back to life, that's where the power will be greatest, by my reckoning. I want to see what happens to you and your friends.”

“Happens to us? Happens to us when?”

“When you're dead, dull boy. You die, you come back to life. Could be good.”

“But we're not dead.”

“You will be when I have you all killed.”

Flea gawked at him.

“You've got it. Right there! Right then! You will be the first, and we've got to hustle because I don't want to miss the show.”

“But suppose it's not true? Suppose Yesh doesn't come back to life? Suppose none of the things that are supposed to happen come about?” Flea's voice trembled.

The Results Man shrugged. “You'd have died anyway. And remember, you were prepared to sacrifice yourself for your friends.”

“But I don't want to die.”

Three things happened then in quick succession. First Flea remembered Yesh being sick in the Pleasure Gardens and understood for the first time what Yesh had been going through as a human being, as a man. Then a feeling of queasy fullness in his belly took him over and he was sick himself. And, last of all, the impossible happened.

The world shifted.

 

54

The earth was eating them.
The walls ground like giant teeth and the dungeon floor writhed like a flat stone tongue. They all fell over in the sudden churn. Flea could not see, could not breathe. He opened his mouth to shout and it clogged with dust.

Then everything stopped. No one moved. Movement might set it off again. Men groaned. The dust settled.

And then came a tremor that shook them like dogs shake rats. Rocks crashed. The air thickened.

Then nothing. Flea opened his eyes. They were caked with dust, but he could see dust and he could taste dust and that meant he was still alive.

Outside the dungeon, above the table where the old man in the apron had sat, a torch was still burning. Its flame was a smoky halo in the clogged air.

Flea got onto his hands and knees. The sickness had passed. He saw the others lying where they had fallen, but beginning to move. The Results Man was on his side. The old man seemed to be growing out of the wall. It took Flea a while to work out that a large lump of rock had dropped on top of his head and shoulders and squashed them flat.

“Big! Red!” Flea hissed. “Are you all right? All of you?”

A quiet chorus of yeses.

“What happened?” the Results Man said. He spat.

“Earthquake,” Flea said. Another tremor shook the ground. A chunk of rock fell from the roof right into the pit where the Temple Boys had been held.

“I've got to get out of here,” the Results Man said. He tried to sit up, then screamed, “My arm! It's broken! Guards! Help me.”

But the guards stationed at the door had gone.

“Boys. You help me, then.”

The Results Man maneuvered himself onto his knees, supporting himself with his good arm. Flea reached out with his leg, kicked out, and swept it away. The Results Man fell on his face and screamed again as Big and Little Big landed on his back. The others followed. He writhed, then went still.

“Can't breathe,” he gasped. “Let me go.”

“What do we do with him?” Big asked Flea.

Flea tried to think. In truth, he wanted to kick him again.

“Flea. We need to know.”

“Put him in the pit,” he said, surprising himself by coming to a decision. All you had to do was say it and …

The Results Man started to writhe again. “No. It'll kill me. Let me go and I'll give you free passage out of the Fortress. Out of the city. Anywhere! I'll help you escape. I'll set you all up for life.”

“When you're the emperor.”

“It could happen.”

“No, it couldn't,” Flea said. He was very certain that if the world ended and a new one was created, there would be little room for the Results Man as a god. Equally, if by any chance he did achieve what he wanted, Flea thought there would be little room for himself and the Temple Boys.

“The earthquake is a sign. It's the beginning of the end,” the Results Man moaned.

“Then you'll be all right. Smash, Grab—pull up the ladder. The rest of you, chuck him in the hole.”

Which they did. The earth grumbled again as he hit the bottom of the pit, so they took off.

The lower levels of the Fortress had emptied like magic. Blocks of masonry had fallen from arches and ceilings, but the boys managed to pick their way around them.

Hanging dust crunched between their teeth. Pools of oil burned where lamps had fallen.

At ground level, Flea allowed himself to be guided by his nose and led everyone to the kitchens.

At the door he paused. He could hear something scratching around inside. He peered around the door. It was chaos in there. Tables had been overturned as the kitchen workers had rushed to get out into the open when the earthquake struck. Against the far wall an overturned table was scraping slowly across the floor, apparently moving by itself.

It stopped and a small head appeared above it. Flea's heart leaped.

“Tesha!” he shouted.

Tesha lifted her head, saw him, and smiled.

“Just coming to get you,” she said. “I tried to get in through the front but this is better. Hurry, the soldiers are getting ready to come back in.”

“How did you know…?”

“I knew they'd lock you up. As soon as the earthquake started everyone rushed out, so I came in. It's chaos in the city. It's rather peaceful in here, believe it or not.”

“Everyone, this is Tesha,” Flea said. “Grab whatever food you can and follow her out. We're heading for the tombs.”

“But that's a girl,” Big said.

“I know,” Flea said. “She's a girl and she's going to get us out of here. Look—grab that wineskin and that pile of bread. There's dried fruit over there. Do I have to do everything?”

He felt madly active and utterly exhausted at the same time. There was little connection between his head and his feet or his mouth and his mind. He was in a daze, a useful daze of what he supposed was relief, but he wasn't sure. He just knew it was important to keep going, keep going, and keep going until he stopped.

And then there would be an end. He would just have to hope that the end carried a new beginning in it, like a gift.

But perhaps it was just the end.

 

55

At the tombs the dawn air
was sweet and rich. A silence tingled gently, waiting to fill up with something good. Flea had found space for them all on the cliff above the tombs. He lay back and felt the dew bathe his face. Happiness began to spread through every bit of him, a happiness that warmed, stopped limbs from aching, soothed cuts and bruises, and gently washed away the gallery of horrors in his mind.

Whatever happened, they were here. He had done it—he'd gotten them out. Whatever happened next was out of his hands.

The sun was rising behind the city to the east, and a bead of light, bright and clean as molten metal, was bleeding from around the great rock that blocked the mouth of Yeshua's tomb. Mari and Matta were there with Yesh's mother. They threw their arms in front of their faces and fell forward.

The scaffold groaned and shuddered. Dust fell and the stone in front of the tomb rumbled sideways. The light, brighter than the sun now, poured from the widening gap and spread. Flea screwed his eyes shut tight and put his hands in front of his face, but it shone through his flesh and it blasted through his bones. He could feel it on his skin, hot as oil, soft as wool. It pierced his skin and his head until the light was inside him and he could see a dark figure in the midst of it, floating.

“Flea,” a voice said. “Why did you doubt me?”

“Magician?”

Yeshua laughed, a sound that was as deep as gold and as bright as silver. “Call me what you like. I am what I am. But what are you, Flea?”

“I don't know.”

“But I do. I know you, Flea. I know what you want. I know what you dream of. Open your eyes and look.”

Yeshua's light was a deep draft from a well of glitter and freshness.

Instead of blinding Flea, it allowed him to see more clearly than he had ever seen before. Every detail in the world around him thrummed, from the pebbles at his feet to the distant city walls. Colors brimmed. Smooth shadows quivered. The whole world could barely wait to spill its secrets. Yeshua lifted his hand and a ray like a spear lanced from his palm, so intense that it shone through the city walls and blew them away like silk. The light shone through the huddled houses so they fell like dust. The light blew through the proud palaces so they became thin and fragile as ancient leaves. The light gathered round the Temple and crushed it.

And where the light poured onto the earth, the ground broke and blistered. In front of the tombs a small white bone appeared, then another. They skittered across the dry earth until they made a finger, a hand, an arm. Still the light shone. Soil gathered, swelled, plumped, and became flesh. The earth convulsed and squeezed out bodies. Men and women, girls and boys hauled themselves out of tombs and bathed in the light.

But as soon as they began to move, Flea realized something was wrong. He could see them walk, he could see them nod their heads, and when they saw Yeshua floating above them on his cloud of glory they bowed and knelt, but they weren't moving: something was moving them. The way they raised their arms was too smooth. They opened their mouths too wide to show tongues that were as white as salt and as pulpy as berries. When they began to sing, it was too loud and too pure and the sound was trying to smother him.

“No!
NO!
”

“Flea!” He felt a slap on his face and jerked his eyes wide open. Big was leaning down over him. There was no sign of any singing bodies. He was at the tombs and he had fallen asleep, but the sky was gray and the only true thing he had dreamed were the three women who had been at Yeshua's crucifixion. They were waiting outside his tomb and looked exhausted. The memory of the dream faded to a musty paste in his mind.

“Nightmare?” Tesha asked. She was sitting next to Flea. He leaned into her.

“I dreamed people really did come back to life,” he said.

“And?”

“It was bad.” He swallowed. His spit tasted brown. He wanted a drink. “Last summer I was down at the sheep baths and I pulled a drowned mouse out of the water. It was tiny and weighed nothing, but I just remember its little pink claws and teeth, like grape pips. Anyway, I put it down on a stone to dry—I don't know why—and then after a while I saw it move. I was so pleased because I thought it had revived, but then…”

He stopped and met Tesha's gaze. Flea had not noticed before, but with her big gray eyes and heart-shaped face she was very pretty. At some point in the last day she must have washed, and her cropped hair had dried into a sort of dark pelt. He wanted to run his hand through it. He wanted to do that more than he wanted to finish his story.

“Well?” she prompted. Her steady gaze coaxed the words from him.

“Then I saw it was moving wrong. I hadn't brought it back to life. It was ants. They'd got under it and were sort of lifting and pulling it so it looked alive but wasn't. That's what the people were like in my dream. Dead but not dead. Alive but not alive. Ant life.”

Tesha shuffled closer. They were both hugging their knees, side by side, hips and shoulders touching. Flea could feel her bones and her warmth. “It scares me, too,” she said. “If the dead come back, does that mean all the bad people will come back too?”

“I just don't know. Maybe they'll be … improved.” He thought of Eleazar and doubted it. “I'm scared. I'm really scared, and there's nothing I can do.”

“Better to do something,” Tesha said. “Anything. Just waiting here I feel like a lamb in one of the killing pens.” She made a little bleating sound.

“Maybe we should go to Yesh's tomb, then.”

“But that's like, I mean if anything happens, that's where…”

“Then it will be over quickly,” Flea said. He took a breath. “And there's something I've got to tell the women. If they're waiting for Yesh to come back to life, I think they're in for a terrible shock. They should be prepared that he might have changed.”