The Fifth Mountain Part 4

"I have seen you at other times, and have obeyed the angel of the Lord,"

replied Elijah, without raising his head. "And yet I have done nothing but sow misfortune wherever I go."

But the angel continued: "When thou returnest to the city, ask three times for the boy to come back to life. The third time, the Lord will hearken unto thee."

"Why am I to do this?"

"For the grandeur of G.o.d."

"Even if it comes to pa.s.s, I have doubted myself. I am no longer worthy of my task," answered Elijah.

"Every man hath the right to doubt his task, and to forsake it from time to time; but what he must not do is forget it. Whoever doubteth not himself is unworthyfor in his unquestioning belief in his ability, he commiteth the sin of pride. Blessed are they who go through moments of indecision."

"Moments ago, you saw I was not even sure you were an emissary of G.o.d."

"Go, and obey what I have said."

AFTER MUCH TIME HAD Pa.s.sED, ELIJAH DESCENDED THE mountain to the place of the altars of sacrifice. The guards were awaiting him, but the mult.i.tude had returned to Akbar.

"I am ready for death," he said. "I have asked forgiveness from the G.o.ds of the Fifth Mountain, and now they command that, before my soul abandons my body, I go to the house of the widow who took me in, and ask her to take pity on my soul."

The soldiers led him back, to the presence of the high priest, where they repeated what the Israelite had said.

"I shall do as you ask," the high priest told the prisoner. "Since you have sought the forgiveness of the G.o.ds, you should also seek it of the widow.

So that you do not flee, you will go accompanied by four armed soldiers.

But harbor no illusion that you will convince her to ask clemency; when morning comes, we shall execute you in the middle of the square."

The high priest wished to inquire what he had seen atop the mountain, but in the presence of the soldiers the answer might be awkward. He therefore decided to remain silent, but he approved of having Elijah ask for forgiveness in public; no one else could then doubt the power of the G.o.ds of the Fifth Mountain.

Elijah and the soldiers went to the poor, narrow street where he had dwelled for several months. The doors and windows of the widow's house were open so that, following custom, her son's soul could depart, to go to live with the G.o.ds. The body was in the center of the small room, with the entire neighborhood sitting in vigil.

When they noticed the presence of the Israelite, men and women alike were horrified.

"Out with him!" they screamed at the guards. "Isn't the evil he has caused enough? He is so perverse that the G.o.ds of the Fifth Mountain refused to dirty their hands with his blood!"

"Leave to us the task of killing him!" shouted a man. "We'll do it right now, without waiting for the ritual execution!"

Standing his ground against the shoves and blows, Elijah freed himself of the hands that grasped him and ran to the widow, who sat weeping in a corner.

"I can bring him back from the dead. Let me touch your son," he said.

"For just an instant."

The widow did not even raise her head.

"Please," he insisted. "Even if it be the last thing you do for me in this life, give me the chance to try to repay your generosity."

Some men seized him to drag him away. But Elijah resisted, struggling with all his strength, imploring to be allowed to touch the dead child.

Although he was young and determined, he was finally pulled away to the door of the house. "Angel of the Lord, where are you?" he cried to the heavens.

At that moment, everyone stopped. The widow had risen and come toward him. Taking him by the hands, she led him to where the cadaver of her son lay, then removed the sheet that covered him.

"Behold the blood of my blood," she said. "May it descend upon the heads of your line if you do not achieve what you desire."

He drew near, to touch the boy.

"One moment," said the widow. "First, ask your G.o.d to fulfill my curse."

Elijah's heart was racing. But he believed what the angel had told him.

"May the blood of this boy descend upon the heads of my father and mother and upon my brothers, and upon the sons and daughters of my brothers, if I do not do that which I have said."

Then, despite all his doubts, his guilt, and his fears, "He took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

"And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my G.o.d, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?

"And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my G.o.d, I pray Thee, let this child's soul come into him again."

For long moments nothing happened. Elijah saw himself back in Gilead, standing before the soldier with an arrow pointing at his heart, aware that oftentimes a man's fate has nothing to do with what he believes or fears. He felt calm and confident as he had that day, knowing that, whatever the outcome might be, there was a reason that all of this had come to pa.s.s. Atop the Fifth Mountain, the angel had called this reason the "grandeur of G.o.d"; he hoped one day to understand why the Creator needed His creatures to demonstrate this glory.

It was then that the boy opened his eyes.

"Where's my mother?" he asked.

"Downstairs, waiting for you," replied Elijah, smiling.

"I had a strange dream. I was traveling through a dark hole, at a speed faster than the swiftest horse in Akbar. I saw a manI am sure he was my father, though I never knew him. Then I came to a beautiful place where I wanted to stay; but another manone I don't know but who seemed very good and braveasked me kindly to turn away from there.

I wanted to go on, but you awoke me."

The boy seemed sad; the place he had almost entered must be lovely.

"Don't leave me alone, for you made me come back from a place where I knew I'd be protected."

"Let us go downstairs," Elijah said. "Your mother wants to see you."

The boy tried to rise, but he was too weak to walk. Elijah took him in his arms and descended the stairs.

The people downstairs appeared overwhelmed by profound terror.

"Why are all these people here?" the boy asked.

Before Elijah could respond, the widow took the boy in her arms and began kissing him, weeping.

"What did they do to you, Mother? Why are you so sad?"

"I'm not sad, my son," she answered, drying her tears. "Never in my life have I been so happy."

Saying this, the widow threw herself on her knees and said in a loud voice: "By this act I know that you are a man of G.o.d! The truth of the Lord comes from your words!"

Elijah embraced her, asking her to rise."Let this man go!" she told the soldiers. "He has overcome the evil that had descended upon my house!"

The people gathered there could not believe what they saw. A young woman of twenty, who worked as a painter, kneeled beside the widow.

One by one, others imitated her gesture, including the soldiers charged with taking Elijah into captivity.

"Rise," he told them, "and worship the Lord. I am merely one of His servants, perhaps the least prepared."

But they all remained on their knees, their heads bowed.

"You spoke with the G.o.ds of the Fifth Mountain," he heard a voice say.

"And now you can do miracles."

"There are no G.o.ds there. I saw an angel of the Lord, who commanded me to do this."

"You were with Baal and his brothers," said another person.

Elijah opened a path, pushing aside the kneeling people, and went out into the street. His heart was still racing, as if he had erred and failed to carry out the task that the angel had taught him. "To what avail is it to restore the dead to life if none believe the source of such power?" The angel had asked him to call out the name of the Lord three times but had told him nothing about how to explain the miracle to the mult.i.tude in the room below. "Can it be, as with the prophets of old, that all I desired was to show my own vanity?" he wondered.

He heard the voice of his guardian angel, with whom he had spoken since childhood.

"Thou hast been today with an angel of the Lord."

"Yes," replied Elijah. "But the angels of the Lord do not converse with men; they only transmit the orders that come from G.o.d."

"Use thy power," said the guardian angel.

Elijah did not understand what was meant by that. "I have no power but that which comes from the Lord," he said.

"Nor hath anyone. But all have the power of the Lord, and use it not."

And the angel said moreover: "From this day forward, and until the moment thou returnest to the land thou hast abandoned, no other miracle will be granted thee."

"And when will that be?"

"The Lord needeth thee to rebuild Israel," said the angel. "Thou wilt tread thy land when thou hast learned to rebuild."

And he said nothing more.

PART II

THE HIGH PRIEST SAID THE PRAYERS TO THE RISING sun and asked the G.o.d of the storm and the G.o.ddess of animals to have mercy on the foolish. He had been told, that morning, that Elijah had brought the widow's son back from the kingdom of the dead.

The city was both frightened and excited. Everyone believed the Israelite had received his powers from the G.o.ds of the Fifth Mountain, and now it would be much more difficult to be rid of him. "But the right moment will come," he told himself.

The G.o.ds would bring about an opportunity to do away with him. But divine wrath had another purpose, and the a.s.syrians' presence in the valley was a sign. Why were hundreds of years of peace about to end?

He had the answer: the invention of Byblos. His country had developed a form of writing accessible to all, even to those who were unprepared to use it. Anyone could learn it in a short time, and that would mean the end of civilization.

The high priest knew that, of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terribleand the most powerfulwas the word.

Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided.

But the word managed to destroy without leaving clues. If the sacred rituals became widely known, many would be able to use them to attempt to change the Universe, and the G.o.ds would become confused.

Till that moment, only the priestly caste knew the memory of the ancestors, which was transmitted orally, under oath that the information would be kept in secret. Or else years of study were needed to be able to decipher the characters that the Egyptians had spread throughout the world; thus only those who were highly trainedscribes and priestscould exchange written information.

Other peoples had their rudimentary forms of recording history, but these were so complicated that no one outside the regions where they were used would bother to learn them. The invention of Byblos, however, had one explosive aspect: it could be used in any country, independent of the language spoken. Even the Greeks, who generally rejected anything not born in their cities, had adopted the writing of Byblos as a common practice in their commercial transactions. As they were specialists in appropriating all that was novel, they had already baptized the invention of Byblos with a Greek name: alphabet.Secrets guarded through centuries of civilization were at risk of being exposed to the light. Compared to this, Elijah's sacrilege in bringing someone back from the other bank of the river of death, as was the practice of the Egyptians, meant nothing.

"We are being punished because we are no longer able to safeguard that which is sacred," he thought. "The a.s.syrians are at our gates, they will cross the valley, and they will destroy the civilization of our ancestors."

And they would do away with writing. The high priest knew the enemy's presence was not mere happenstance.

It was the price to be paid. The G.o.ds had planned everything with great care so that none would perceive that they were responsible; they had placed in power a governor who was more concerned with trade than with the army, they had aroused the a.s.syrians' greed, had made rainfall ever more infrequent, and had brought an infidel to divide the city. Soon the final battle would be waged.

AKBAR WOULD GO ON EXISTING EVEN AFTER ALL THAT, but the threat from the characters of Byblos would be expunged from the face of the earth forever. The high priest carefully cleaned the stone that marked the spot where, many generations before, the foreign pilgrim had come upon the place appointed by heaven and had founded the city. "How beautiful it is," he thought. The stones were an image of the G.o.dshard, resistant, surviving under all conditions, and without the need to explain why they were there. The oral tradition held that the center of the world was marked by a stone, and in his childhood he had thought about searching out its location. He had nurtured the idea until this year. But when he saw the presence of the a.s.syrians in the depths of the valley, he understood he would never realize his dream.

"It's not important. It fell to my generation to be offered in sacrifice for having offended the G.o.ds. There are unavoidable things in the history of the world, and we must accept them."

He promised himself to obey the G.o.ds: he would make no attempt to forestall the war.

"Perhaps we have come to the end of days. There is no way around the crises that grow with each pa.s.sing moment."

The high priest took up his staff and left the small temple; he had a meeting with the commander of Akbar's garrison.

HE WAS NEARLY to the southern wall when he was approached by Elijah.

"The Lord has brought a boy back from the dead," the Israelite said. "The city believes in my power."

"The boy must not have been dead," replied the high priest. "It's happened before; the heart stops and then starts beating again. Today the entire city is talking about it; tomorrow, they will recall that the G.o.ds are close at hand and can hear what they say. Their mouths will fall silent once more. I must go; the a.s.syrians are preparing for battle."