Servant of the Bones

"And you think I'm just going to let you do this," I said. "You think I won't try to stop you. You think I will be a party to this horror? You count yourself among the wrong leaders. Cyrus rose to power by tolerance of the religions in his Persian empire. Alexander brought Hellenism to Asia, he married Asian to Greek. The Pax Romana was a time of tolerance. Don't you see, you filth, you take your place with the destroyers!"

I couldn't hold my temper. He looked hurt, deeply hurt but more than that, disappointed and sad, a man committed.

"You take your place with Attila the Hun," I said. "You take your place with Tamerlane, who built walls out of the live bodies of the conquered. You do indeed take your place with the Black Death and with Ebola and with AIDS. You are destruction!"

He shook his hands. He put them up to his face.

"Azriel, try to comprehend the beauty of this. The scope. It is what the world needs, and the only thing that can save the world. Nations have always been annihilated to make way for other nations. The Indians of America were wiped out so that this great nation could rise. Must I remind you what Yahweh told Joshua and Saul and David? To annihilate their enemies to the last man, woman, and child.

"Don't you see, Azriel, this takes brilliance and courage. Unbelievable courage. And I have it. I have it and the means and I can see it through. I can endure the condemnations, the outcries. I have the vision!"

He stood up again, and went to the map as if musing.

"You know, once it's begun, perhaps then you'll see."

"It isn't going to begin!" I declared. I stood up.

There was a little star at the very center of the map. I saw it too late. White, the Star of David or the Star of Magicians. It had had much significance down through the years. He stared at it lovingly.

Too late, I realized that he had pressed it! It was a button. He had triggered something!

"What have you done?" I demanded.

"Merely sent Nathan to his death. He's groomed and ready. He'll be assassinated in front of the building within five minutes. That starts the worldwide countdown of two hours. You have that time to learn from me, and pray you do, and become my helper."

I stood up, dumbfounded.

"My God!" I declared in prayer and utter horror.

"Well, what are you going to do? Stay here? Kill me? Try to save Nathan? Nathan is going down in the elevator now. Look at that monitor. You see it?"

I did. High up in a far corner I saw a blurry picture of Nathan, the true identical clone of Gregory now, his beard and locks shorn, held up by those who stood next to him. He wore Gregory's clothes. I could even see the slight bulge of Gregory's personal gun in the coat pocket. To my horror I realized that the front elevator doors were opening. To my horror I realized that the figures were moving towards the front doors of the Temple, towards the crowd.

"You can't do anything, Azriel. You came back to life to be my messenger. If you kill me now you kill the one man who might be persuaded to stop this a little later on. I won't of course, but you'll make it a fait accompli, as we say, if you kill me. You need me. You know you do. You need me badly."

In desperation, I gave a cry for the iron to come to me that I needed. I held two nails in my hands. I kicked him back against the map, then threw him against the wall, lest the map be full of triggers and buttons.

I drove the nails through his hands. He winced but he didn't cry out.

"You fool!" he said. He shut his eyes as if savoring the pain. Then became enraged.

"Well, you wanted to be the Messiah, didn't you?" I said. He cursed and snarled, writhing, hands nailed to the wall.

On the monitor I saw the figure of "Gregory," Nathan in disguise, stepping out into the crowd.

I dissolved and moved myself to that spot with all my power, invisible.

But even as I did, I heard the rifle shots. I heard the hail of bullets that descended upon the innocent Nathan. I heard the screams rising from the street.

25

Nathan lay in a pool of blood, eyes blinking at the bright summer sky, as the crowd panicked around him. The assassins had been snared by the mob. Sirens screamed. The Minders wailed.

I stared down at the body of Nathan. I saw the confusion in his bright dark eyes. Memory swam over me, threatening to pull me from the moment.

Then I realized that everything around me had changed. The building had faded. The crowd was gone.

Up before me into the beautiful sky rose the gleaming and unmistakable Stairway to Heaven.

With my own eyes, I tell you, I saw a light that others have told you over and over is indescribable. I saw a light so full of warmth and love and understanding that it filled me in my invisibility, reached me at my core. And I saw Nathan slowly walking up the Ladder.

At the top Rachel and Esther appeared. There were others I didn't know, and suddenly I realized in this blinding and beautiful brightness that they were telling Nathan he had to go back, he couldn't die, he had to return.

Nathan turned around obedient and began to cry; he cried and cried with his hands to his eyes. His image now was Hasid; he had the beard and locks they'd shaved from him. He had his black hat. But he was a spirit returning to the ravaged body that lay on the ground, in which the heart had just ceased to beat.

Suddenly Rachel called to me. I found myself running up the Staircase. Nothing stopped me. I was on it, I tell you, Jonathan, I was on the golden stairs and there above they stood, I saw them all, not only Rachel and Esther, but my father, my own father, and Zurvan, my first teacher, and Samuel and others. I saw them; in a nickering my whole memory was restored to me.

My life passed through youth and innocence into the horror of my murder in which I knew each personage and his or her role, and then all Zurvan's teachings returned to me. Everything I had ever done I saw, good and evil.

I was almost to the top, and Nathan was staring at me in astonishment. Rachel stepped forward.

"Azriel," she said, "you go back, into Nathan's body. Azriel, he's not strong enough to fight Gregory, but you are. You can keep the body alive! Azriel, I beg you."

Nathan turned to me; he was so like Gregory and yet so pure and clean and full of love, utter love. He looked searchingly at all those gathered at the top of the stairs, only a few feet away, where the garden began and the light rose with limitless brilliance.

"You mean I could stay with you?" he asked the others. He looked at Rachel and Esther, and other Hasidim I did not know, Elders, and my elders too!

I wanted to throw myself into my father's arms. "Can't we both come now?" I cried. "Please, Father!"