Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (56 page)

CHAPTER 59

From afar they come in joy of their God; from distant islands God has assembled them. He flattened high mountains into level ground for them. The hills fled at their coming.

Yerushalaim, put on the clothes of your glory, prepare the robe of your holiness!

Psalms of Solomon

Codex Sinaiticus.

Circa 37 C.E. Document housed

in Septuaginta archives on

Josephus 4.

Aktariel knelt on the floor and gently lifted Rachel’s wounded body in his arms. She felt feather-light and as frail as a blade of grass. Her carmine cloak draped in sculpted folds over his legs. The hexagonal control chamber with its massive array of multicolored computer screens and consoles had gone utterly dark. But his golden glow and the combined effulgence of the
Meas
gave the chamber a greenish hue.

“Rachel?” he whispered. “I know you can hear me.” He tenderly pushed the wealth of black waves away from her slack face. “I need you with me for the culmination. It’ll be hard. Even afterward.”

He felt her soul cower and he clutched her powerfully against him. “I can let you go if you want me to. Or …” he swallowed convulsively and nuzzled his cheek against hers. “Or I can let you go to Yisroel—with Sybil and Jeremiel. It’s your choice.”

She vacillated, mentally reaching out to him, then jerking away in fear. He gazed around the quaking room while he waited. Slothen’s hideous body had gone stiff, his mangled arms thrusting up at odd angels. Mastema glared accusingly through wide dead eyes.

Finally, Rachel courageously reached out to him again. He smiled mournfully and put his hand over her wounded chest. His spirit flowed in and around her, pulling together the wavering strands of the vortex, mending the damage to her delicate human flesh.

She roused in his arms and looked up through dark somber eyes.

“Are you ready, Rachel. It’s time.”

“Yes, I-I’m ready.”

He led her to the control console and waved his hand to call up the image of Zohar on one of the overhead screens. Rachel straightened beside him, standing bravely. Thick waves of black hair cascaded down the back of her carmine cloak.

She tilted her beautiful face up to gaze at him. In those midnight eyes he saw fear. “Are they all safely away, Aktariel?”

He bowed his head and nodded. “Yes, they’re safe. Just as you wanted. I don’t know the outcome of your actions. But I can’t worry about it now.”

In the golden glow of his face, he saw her mouth tighten. “I had to try.”

Gently, he responded, “I know.”

She fumbled aimlessly with the bloody starburst over her chest. “You let them go?”

“Yes.”

Rachel touched his shoulder and he cautiously pulled her against him, letting himself drown for a few precious seconds in the feel of her body and fragrance of her hair.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. We must hurry.”

On the overhead screen, he could see Zohar’s black gaping mouth swell until it encompassed the screen.

Rachel pressed warmly against him. “Do you hear it?” she asked.

“I hear it.”

It had started only moments ago—an unearthly music, like a glistening halo flitting around the edges of his consciousness. That soundless song of Light whispered to him in such sweet, high notes he wished he could dangle here on the edge of the two merging event horizons and listen to it forever.

“We need to get inside our own void,” he urged and lifted his hand to draw out the spinning vortex. They stepped inside and stood on the very edge, still visually surrounded by the main control room with its flickering computer screens.

He braced himself—waiting—and finally Palaia Station broke up and its massive charge combined with that of Zohar.

The event horizons vanished in an actinic burst of such overpowering brilliance that Aktariel vented a small cry and threw up his arm to shield his eyes. Rachel buried her face in the soft folds of his blue hood.

“How much longer?” Rachel asked.

He shook his head and whispered. “I don’t know.”

The glittering shawl of music oscillated, growing deeper, changing into a wrenching wail that swept through Aktariel like a glacial wind. Despite the protective womb of their void, he could feel the dread and terror pervading Epagael as he absorbed this station with its few thousand tormented consciousnesses.

In the utter blackness, light flickered, then a long dagger shot out, stretching endlessly, widening like a river in flood as it streaked out of Zohar’s throat and shot into the universe in a flaming silver wash.

Barely audible, Rachel said, “Jachin? The Pillar of Light?”

“Yes. Epagael’s trying desperately to cleanse the universe before any more of the poison can enter His body. Which means—” he vented a soft sigh “—it’s time for us to add our millennia of accumulated memories to the rush.”

Aktariel took off his
Mea
and gestured for Rachel to do the same. She hesitantly complied and gently draped the golden chain atop his open palm. He closed his fingers tightly around both and gathered Rachel into his arms. He noticed with mild disdain that his muscles had started to tremble. What did he fear, he wondered? The possibility of failure? Or just the grief for all the small things he’d miss? Wildflowers and sunrises …

He caressed Rachel’s long silken hair and closed his eyes, murmuring, “Stay close to me,” as he tossed their
Meas
into the whirling darkness.

The void around them vanished in a flare of cold glittering glory. A deluge of misty rainbow fires swallowed them as they fell, and fell …

Their grip on each other strained until it felt as tenuous as a crystal thread.

“Aktariel?
Rachel cried.

“I’m here,”
he answered softly, comfortingly, and tightened his grip on her. “I’m here …”

…
and they pierced the Treasury of Light and melted like prodigal sparks into the eternal blinding brilliance.

CHAPTER 60

Rudy laughed feebly when Palaia exploded. The
Hammadi
had been battered so brutally, the Magisterial cruisers had shoved the vessel out and away from the station. He lay on his back on the shattered bridge, equipment tumbling around him, pinning his legs to the floor. But on the forward screen, he saw chunks of the station hurtle outward at near light speed, streaming across the dark heavens like coherent beams of violet. They spurted around the blasted carcass of the
Hammadi
and streaked away into space.

Behind them, in the space where Palaia had been, a twinkling spray of white sparks coalesced out of the silver wash of light, growing in intensity.

“Singularities from Palaia’s hold.”

They moved as though animate, weaving toward each other in a gravitational dance of such sublime magnificence that Rudy’s eyes blurred with tears. When the holes got too close to each other, white threads of mass shot out from each spark, tying to the other until the entire spray formed a gigantic glimmering net.

Rudy had to slit his eyes against the brilliance. Through the dark crescents of his blood-encrusted lashes, he watched the net condense against the background of Zohar and …

Vanish.

Debris, Magisterial cruisers, and a few of the starsails whirled down into the gaping naked singularity that blotted the sky like an ebony fist.

Rudy felt the tug on the
Hammadi
and a chill feeling of resigned acceptance pervaded him. He studied the ruined interior of the bridge, his eyes drifting over the toppled consoles and shredded walls to land painfully on the torn bodies of his crew. Dead. All dead.

Nothing mattered anymore. Palaia was gone.

And Jeremiel, and Tahn … and Merle.

His throat tightened chokingly and he closed his eyes briefly, wondering what it would be like? The oblivion of death? Would he sense it when the powerful electric fields of the charged hole tore apart every atom in his body?

He turned back to the forward screen to examine the instrument of his death. Rudy’s eyes widened. A curious phenomena snaked around the edges of the naked singularity, like a whipping black elephant truck. It braised over several of the freighters and they vanished.

The trunk slithered toward the
Hammadi.

CHAPTER 61

Nathan rolled onto his side beneath the scant shade of a boulder and pounded a fist into the soft warm sand of Gulgolet. He’d wept for so long and so hard that his throat ached. He tried to swallow and had to force it down while he gazed up at the line of crosses that stood silhouetted against the lavender rays of sunset. Yesu’s head had lolled forward in unconsciousness minutes before. His long hair draped like a brown sheath over his naked chest. His loincloth and the ropes securing his hands and feet to the cross were the only remnants he wore to shield him against the coming chill of night.

That morning when the sun had edged above the horizon in a golden crescent, they’d launched their rescue attempt—and failed. The Procurator had tripled his forces around the hill. Matthya had been killed and Nathan had escaped by sheer luck, disappearing in the wild clash of horses and rush of fleeing people.

He squeezed his sun-ravaged eyes closed and listened to the repentant voices that came from the crowd. All day long people had been gathering, watching, some gleefully cursing Yesu, others sobbing wildly.

“Lord,” Nathan prayed in a gravelly voice. “Help, Yesu. He’s done nothing wrong. Nothing except try to save his people from the injustices of the Romans. Please, God, I’ll do anything you ask. Just send me a sign that you …”

Nathan opened his eyes when the earth began to quake. He sat up and saw, as though in a hazy dream, a great darkness well in the sky behind the crosses. Like a funnel of the purest black, it spun outward to cover the whole land—
and from its heart, angels, a man and a woman dressed in strange clothes, emerged.

The centurions, seeing them, spurred their horses in fear and tried to gallop away, but the terrified animals sidestepped and ran in circles, shrieking and bucking. The angels shouted to each other in foreign words and drew swords of light from their belts, slashing the heavens with violet blades—as though in judgment!

“Oh,” Nathan croaked as he staggered to his feet. “God sent me angels. Angels with swords of fire!”

The crowd on the hillside screamed and fled, racing away in a torrent of confusion and terror. Nathan knelt, trembling, as the angels trotted toward him. Tears streaked the woman’s cheeks, creating a spiderweb of tracks in the dirt on her beautiful face. She glanced at Yesu and her eyes hardened. She said something soft and pulled a knife from her male companion’s boot, then warily edged forward to slice the ropes that bound Yesu’s feet. Peering anxiously at Nathan, she climbed the back of the cross and cut apart the ropes on Yesu’s hands. She gripped Yesu tightly and helped him down to the warm sandy ground.

“Yesu?” Nathan called with tears in his hoarse voice. He dropped to his knees beside the woman angel and gripped Yesu’s hot arm. “Yesu, don’t die. Wake up.” He gently shook Bar Abbas’ shoulder. “Please, wake up?”

Nathan heard the running steps that swished in the sand behind him, but didn’t look. He tenderly slapped Yesu’s bearded bloody cheek and his friend’s eyes fluttered and widened as he gazed over Nathan’s broad shoulder.
Alive! Bless God!

Nathan stared at the woman angel, then up at her male counterpart. “Thank you,” he wept. “Thank you so much.”

The man, who had brown hair and strange blue-violet eyes shifted uncomfortably. To the woman, he murmured, “Gamant?”

The female pushed spun gold hair away from her face and answered, “Similar. Let’s see how much.” She turned to Nathan and inquired in a heavy and odd Aramaic accent, “Who are you? What is the name of this city?”

Nathan prostrated himself before them and dug his fingers into the sand by their curious boots. “I am Nathanaeus, great angel, thank you. Thank you for coming to help. I praise God that He sent you to the city of Yerushalaim on this terrible day.”

The golden-haired woman looked at the male angel speculatively. Hostilely, she demanded, “Well,
historian,
where the hell is that?”

Before the male could answer, a rush of people surged up the hill, most of them covered with blood, and wearing rap. Nathan patted Yesu’s chest soothingly and stood up. He shielded his eyes from the last rays of sunset. A man and woman led the way. Both young, his age, he guessed. The man had black hair and wore a red robe. The woman was small and thin and had long brown curls. Beside them, two very old men hobbled, their ancient legs barely carrying them through the deep sand of Gulgolet.

“These are our friends,” the woman angel explained. She stepped aside and pulled her male companion back with her.

Nathan swallowed anxiously, not certain what was happening, or why these supernatural beings treated him so oddly.

When the young woman with brown curls got closer, she looked up suddenly and her eyes widened in shock. Her thin hand went to her throat, clutching it as though in pain. The man with her stopped and gripped her elbow steadyingly. “What’s wrong, Sybil?”

A gust of hot wind swept the hilltop, salting them with stinging grains of sand. Nathan threw up his arm to shield his face, and when he slowly lowered it, he found one of the old men staring from him to the dark-haired young man and back again, as though weighing their similar features.

The man waddled forward, short and pudgy, a bare fringe of white hair surrounded his otherwise bald head. A deep pattern of wrinkles wove across his round face. He looked up at Nathan in a gentle way. His tall, gangly friend followed cautiously, one step at a time.

“What’s your name?” The little old man inquired in that odd accent.

Nathan bowed respectfully, glancing at the people in the gathering crowd. All of them dressed strangely, most in curious shiny fabrics like nothing he’d ever seen. “I am Caius Nathanaeus, elder. Who are you?”

“Nathanaeus?”
the little man repeated softly. His eyes glowed suddenly. “I’m Yosef Calas. This is my friend, Ari Funk and …” he turned to the young man and woman standing awkwardly behind. “And this is—well, Mikael and Sybil Calas, my grandniece and nephew.”

The young man,
Mikael,
stepped around Funk and gingerly approached Nathan. Beneath the sun-bronzed skin of the man’s throat, Nathan could see his veins throbbing swiftly. Fear? No, that didn’t make sense. These
beings
had nothing to fear from anyone in Yisroel, not even the Romans, he suspected.

Nathan bowed again, hesitantly. “Mikael,” he said. “I am honored. I …”

Nathan stiffened slightly when Mikael gripped him by the shoulders and forced him to straighten up. He met Calas’ dark probing eyes with bewilderment.

“Nathan?”
the man whispered familiarly.

Nathan flinched slightly when Calas embraced him in a warm hug. He guardedly responded, slipping his arms around Mikael’s waist. Over the head of Yosef, he could see “Sybil” watching him with tears in her eyes. Nathan smiled at her. She was a very pretty woman, indeed.

She cautiously stepped forward and put one arm around Mikael’s back and one around Nathan’s. She braced her head against Nathan’s shoulder and her brown hair fell over his arm in a curly mass.

Nathan blinked contemplatively at the angels, not understanding this ritual. But, oddly, the embraces of these strangers filled some empty place that had always ached in his soul. He peered down questioningly, when he felt Sybil’s warm tears soaking through his brown sleeve. He gently untangled one arm from around Mikael’s waist and snugged it over Sybil’s narrow shoulders, pulling her closer.

“It’s all right, Sybil,” he said reassuringly. “Now that you’re here, everything’s all right.”

She started to respond, but a shout brought her up short.

Nathan looked up to see the male angel with the blue-violet eyes break into a run, shouting,
“Baruch! Carey!”
He charged across the hilltop, almost falling, as though weak, before colliding with the man and woman he’d called to. Their bright laughter made Nathan smile.

And in the darkening sky overhead, a dozen silver daggers pierced the drifting clouds like streaks of fire. Nathan gasped. Some were larger, some smaller, but all blazed like flame. “Mikael?” he asked with trepidation. “What are those?”

The angel with the blue-violet eyes burst into howls of joy, jumping up and down before he ran headlong out across the sandy hills, waving his arms and crying,
“They made it! Baruch, that’s the
Orphica!”