Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (14 page)

CHAPTER 15

Rachel Eloel sat beneath a pomegranate tree on the sandy shores of Lake Kinnaret, her arms wrapped around her drawn up knees. Across the shimmering water, a tan ridge rose like an impenetrable wall. A dust devil whirled along the heights. She tipped her chin up to the warm, olive-scented breeze. Her beautiful heart-shaped face and huge black eyes shone so perfectly in the sunlight, they seemed fashioned from painted alabaster. Strands of long black hair danced before her eyes. She brushed them away with a numb hand. Anger and agony twined into an incapacitating poison in her chest.

Sybil, my baby, forgive me.

She sat for a long while in silence, listening to the sounds of this peaceful place: birds cawed high overhead, animals bleated and neighed, laughter crept out of the confines of the city a quarter mile away.

Why did she always ache? She laughed bitterly at the question. All she’d ever done was ache. No, she chastised herself, not always. She still woke on some nights, feeling content and happy, and reached out for her husband Shadrach. Her body remembered his warmth against hers and constantly craved it—and for those brief moments, her mind forgot that he’d been killed by Ornias in the temple holocaust a dozen years and an eternity ago.

Rachel scooped a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers, forming a peak on the shadow-dappled ground. From the moment Shadrach had been killed and she and Sybil had run away from Seir, the capital city of Horeb, seeking refuge from the Mashiah, she’d been drowning in suffering. Jeremiel had come to Horeb and organized the war against the Mashiah. Rachel had been sent back to Adom’s palace to gain his confidence so that she could murder him when Jeremiel’s first attack came. And she had … murdered him. When Rachel closed her eyes, she could still see Adorn gazing up at her, long blond hair tumbling around his broad shoulders, blood on his lips, a gaping knife wound in his chest. In his eyes she saw all the boyish innocence, the tenderness and love, that had ravaged her heart, and his last words rang like claps of thunder in her soul:
“It’s … all right, Rachel. I know you just wanted to end the suffering … too.”

Smothering rage and the bile of disillusionment struck her. What had all that agony had been for? Had it helped her when she stood before the throne of God and stared in terror at the black whirlwind across the River of Fire? Had it given her courage or knowledge when she’d challenged His infinite wisdom by hurling accusations that he wasn’t good or powerful or all knowing?

No. Epagael had thrown her out of heaven. She’d tumbled through the utter darkness of the void to find herself in the ice cave near the polar chambers—freezing to death.
And then Aktariel came and saved me.
She remembered the way his golden light had flickered like diamonds from the ice-encrusted walls. He’d taken her in his arms and warmed her hypothermia-ravaged body with his own, stroking her hair.
“Sleep, Rachel…. Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not even God.”

Involuntarily, she shivered. She felt so alone and frightened. Even the whisper of the warm wind through the tree over her head seemed to sizzle malevolently. After going down to Tikkun with Cole Tahn and witnessing the horrors of Block 10—the babies piled into trash bins, children shot down ruthlessly by laughing guards, men and women working like hollow-eyed draft animals, their bodies as emaciated as skeletons—she wondered if she would ever be able to find goodness anywhere in this universe again?

Horrifying scenes from the past flitted through her mind like windblown sparks from a campfire. Deep in her heart, she longed to see this universe happy, triumphant, the way God had promised her forebears it would be if they were good and just, and followed His path of Truth.

But that would never be. She’d searched and searched the multiple universes, struggling to find a way of
making
it happen.

And she thought maybe she had … though she prayed Aktariel hadn’t guessed yet. She had too many details left to take care of. If he discovered her actions, he’d certainly stop her.

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a tall man walking toward her. Brown hair flowed down over the shoulders of his coarse camel-colored robe. His long beard was buffeted in the wind, pressing back around his throat. He had a straight nose and large dark eyes. He took his time, meandering along the shore, tenderly touching every goat he passed, as though he feared for their peace of mind.

The sight leavened her spirits a little. As he neared, he gave her a small, apologetic smile and sat down on the sand beside her, gazing out across the water to where birds soared and dove, their wings flashing golden in the sun.

“Ha Notzri,” Rachel said plaintively, “why do you follow me?”

He shrugged and retrieved a piece of driftwood, fiddling with it in his broad sun-bronzed hands that radiated more power in their gentle movements than their owner understood. His eyes seemed to grow in size, highlighting the length of his nose and the fullness of his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you wait for me?”

He nodded, a little ashamed. “Yes.” He pointed toward a grove of trees that dotted the banks of the glimmering lake. “Two days a week, I sit there, and I watch this spot, hoping you’ll come back.”

Rachel shook her head. She’d tried to avoid him, coming at night, coming before dawn, not coming at all. But this place with its calm peacefulness drew her like a thirsty beast to water. She couldn’t stay away—but neither could she risk talking to him. She’d seen his fate in other universes and knew how dangerous he was. She’d often wondered what would have happened to him in her own universe if he’d had a friend worth the name. Not the pathetic, cowardly fools whose bravest moment had been to wring their hands and howl when he’d died. In this universe, he was nothing more than a carefree fisherman, Irving most of his life in the tiny boats that rocked across the lake.
But he could be more if she encouraged and guided him.
… And the very fabric of the multiple universes would heave and shred beneath the weight of what he would feel compelled to do.

“Why do you wait for me, Ha Notzri?”

He gazed at her through dark eyes that glowed with a haunted light. “Because, I-I think I need you.” He tapped a hand against his chest. “I feel it in my heart. Where do you come from, Rachel?”

“Far away,” she said coolly and gathered her white robe in her hands, starting to rise to leave.

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Please, Rachel, I beg you, talk to me. Just for a few minutes. That’s all.”

“I can’t, Ha Notzri. It’s bad for both of us. I’ve told you that before.”

A forlorn look came over his face—so forlorn it made Rachel waver in her decision. What would a few minutes hurt, if she talked to him only about unimportant things? If she let him do most of the talking and just listened?

He seemed to sense her softening resolve. He smiled radiantly. “You’ll stay? I’m so glad. Every time we speak, my heart soars. You’ve taught me so much, Rachel. I’ve been thinking for a year now about what you said about evil.”

Foreboding chilled her spine. She sat down hard in the sand. To him, it would have seemed a year since he’d seen her last. To her, it was a month, and no months. Eternity couldn’t be marked.
But she’d said nothing!
She was always excruciatingly careful not to discuss anything that might change the course of the future in this universe. Rachel glared at him, noting the simple dignity of his face, the breadth of his shoulders. “What did I say? Tell me?”

“You don’t recall?” He smiled teasingly, but it faded at the utterly serious look on her face. He dropped his gaze.

“Tell me.”

He hurried to answer, words pouring out in a rush. “We were talking about silly things, the water system and how far the women had to carry buckets, about when the dates ripened. I brought you a flower, a little blue thing that grows in the deserts. You laughed, but you had tears in your eyes.” He hesitantly reached out and touched her hand where it rested in the sand, caressing her fingers. Had it been any other man, she might have pulled away, but she knew his intentions were the same as with the goats, to soothe a pain he didn’t quite grasp, but somehow felt just the same. “I asked you why beauty made you cry.”

He paused and Rachel’s heart pounded.
What? What did I say?
“And?”

“You said—” He gave her a shy smile. “—I memorized the words, ‘Do you think the beauty of a wildflower pales when your heart is broken, when your child is crying from hunger? Do you think despair clouds every sunset?’ I told you that I thought he who suffered in the flesh had ceased to sin and therefore suffering was salvation.”

Rachel heaved a sigh of relief. She hadn’t told him anything, not really. The wind flapped the white sleeves of her long robe. The scents of the lake, fish, and moist grass salved her weary spirit.

“That’s not quite right, Ha Notzri,” she bravely ventured. “You see, I remember, too. You used the Romans as an example. You said, ‘Perhaps redemption can only be bought with a price of blood, but we should thank God that it can be bought at all.’“

“Did I?” He grinned sheepishly. Brown locks danced over his face. He pulled his long hair forward and knotted it, then tucked it into the back of his tan robe. “That sounds more profound than I recall. I only remember your words. Mine seemed unimportant by comparison.”

For an instant, his heavily-lidded eyes seemed deep dark holes. Rachel studied the way his jaw had clenched. He dropped his gaze to examine the twig of driftwood.

“Why did my words about the flower bother you, Ha Notzri?”

“Because,” he said, and his voice sounded pained, unsure. “It has a bearing on God, doesn’t it? I mean, if you believe that despair clouds the beauty of every sunset, then you think suffering is more prevalent than happiness. And you have to ask why God made it so.”

The hollowness in Rachel’s breast seemed to boom. She said nothing.

He pressed, “Why do you think He did?”

“You tell me.”

He shifted, rolling to his side to gaze up at her eagerly. Whitecaps had formed on the lake behind him, undulating across the surface like swirls of frosting. “I took a trip. I went down to Khirbet Qumran, to talk to the mystics there. They told me something I thought you’d be interested in. I’ve been studying it so I could tell you.”

“What?”

Eagerly, he slid closer to her. “They’re a strange group, but they have beliefs that I think make sense. For example, do you know that they believe the creator God is wicked? And that, therefore, everything He made is wicked.”

He gazed up at her with childlike innocence, reminding her of Adorn. Her soul ached. His eyes seemed less haunted, less filled with hidden anguish at times like this.

“But if they think the Creator is wicked, whom do they worship?”

“This is the part I really wanted to tell you about,” he smiled excitedly and dropped his piece of driftwood, standing it up like a pillar in the sand. “They believe there is a higher God. One who’s composed—if that’s the right word—of immeasurable Light, pure and indescribable, perfect and imperishable.”

“They believe the Creator and the Treasury of Light are different? That is interesting.”

His eyes widened. “You call it the Treasury….”

Ha Notzri halted, turning around quickly at the soft sound of footfalls in the sand behind them. The sweet scent of roses filled the air and Rachel closed her eyes knowingly.
His
image danced on her closed lids, beautiful, awesome.

“Hello,” Ha Notzri said, a little afraid. “I see you’re back again, too. Welcome, friend.”

A pause ensued and Rachel could feel Aktariel’s eyes boring into the back of her head. Ominously, he said, “I’ve been searching for Rachel. It didn’t occur to me she’d be here with you—
again.
Would you excuse us, Yeshwah? I need to talk to Rachel alone.”

The sound of that deep, infinitely kind voice sent a shiver through Rachel. Ha Notzri reached out and caressed her hand a last time before saying simply, “I hope to see you again, soon. Thank you for talking with me. I’ll try to learn more while you’re gone.” Then he rose and ambled away down the shoreline, heading back to his clump of trees where he would, no doubt, keep watching them, wondering who and what they were.

“Rachel,” Aktariel said reproachfully. “How many times must I tell you it’s dangerous for you to—”

“You
don’t
have to tell me.”

She cast a glance over her shoulder. The gusting wind pressed his blue silk robe flat across his broad chest, outlining his perfect muscular body. The sight of him like this—without his magnificent glow—always made butterflies sprout wings in her stomach. He had taken to dropping his glow whenever they were together because he knew the human appearance made her more comfortable—or perhaps more
malleable.

“Even the smallest things,” he continued, “things you think are completely irrelevant, may alter enough of this past that you could—”

“I know, Aktariel.”

“Do you? Do you also realize that if the course of this universe changes all the others in the Void will be affected, too? Every choice Ha Notzri makes as a result of your discussions affects a billion billion alternate universes. Those changes could ‘catch’ like wildfire across the Void—
setting flame to the entire weave.”