I chuckled. “Yeah, he said to sin boldly!”
“But to believe more boldly still,” Philip said. “His statement is often misunderstood. But if you look at his words in context, it makes sense. Luther’s point was that, for the Christian, because we are in a broken world, sometimes we are in situations where sinning is unavoidable. The point of the Christian life isn’t to live without sin. It’s to be honest about our sin. Even bold about it, not to hide it in our closets, so long as we’re even bolder about our belief in God’s grace.”
“I get that,” I said. “Sometimes even the right course of action is still stained with sin. In such instances, we have to trust in God’s grace and mercy. But that still doesn’t tell me which action I should pursue.”
Philip pressed his lips together. He didn’t know what I was talking about. But I did have a genuine dilemma. Use my power to stop the earthquake and save lives now. That was option number one. But it would possibly enrage the Furies even more. It might divide them from the elementals, and since the whole prophecy was about me uniting the peoples, even the original protector races, it would be the opposite of what I was meant to do. That was exactly what Brightborn wanted me to do. It was a temptation to save lives, but with the consequence of possibly breaking the prophecy. But in the end, if I didn’t stay the course, it could cost an exponentially greater loss of life in the long run.
“Let's revise the whole Hitler time-travel dilemma a little,” Philip said. “What if, rather than going back in time to kill him, you arrive in the past to find that some other time traveler hoping to prevent the Holocaust had strapped Hitler to train tracks, and you got there just in time to see a locomotive was barreling down on his position. But you look and there’s a lever to pull, and you could divert the train down another track before it hit him. Are you, in this instance, ethically compelled to act to save Hitler? Does the fact you know that what he’ll do if he survives change the equation at all? Is the whole dilemma different because you have more knowledge about what Hitler will eventually become than it would be if it was anyone else lying on those tracks?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Or let's just take Hitler out of the equation. What if the train is heading down one path, and there are dozens of people in the cars who are going to die if it continues going that direction, but if you divert the train, it will hit one little old lady whose high heel is stuck in the tracks. In this case, the only way you could save the car with a young family inside would be to pull the lever, but by doing that, you’d kill the old lady. Do you act? Or do you leave it to the fates and mourn the loss of the young family?”
“Dude,” I said, staring at Philip blankly. “You aren’t making this any easier. In the first case, I don’t think I’d save Hitler.”
“But you aren’t an executioner, Caspar. You’d still be guilty of killing him. Thou shalt not kill.”
“I know… In the second situation, it would tear me up inside, but I’d have to save the young family.”
“But in that situation, if you did nothing, you wouldn’t have directly killed anyone. By acting, you actually commit the murder.”
I grunted. “I don’t know. My gut tells me that’s the right thing to do. I shouldn’t be in a position to choose who lives and dies.”
“But in such a situation, the position has been thrust upon you. Whether you do nothing or do something, you have the power to change the outcome. It isn’t a matter of what’s right or wrong, Caspar. If you have been put into the situation, then it’s God’s will that you be there. We could argue, from different ethical standpoints, that one action is preferable to the other.”
I snorted. “Yeah, if we followed utilitarianism, saving the most people is always the ethical choice. The greatest good for the greatest number.”
“But if you chose a different philosopher, by Kant’s ethics, you’d have to act in terms of the universal application of the act. Is the act, itself, right or wrong in every situation?”
“Which one is right?” I asked. “Seems to me that in philosophical ethics, we just cling to whichever scheme justifies what we want to do, anyway. In the end, we act according to what our conscience, our gut, tells us is right.”
“And for the Christian,” Philip said. “We rest in grace. Because at the end of the day, we can’t live perfect lives. We can’t avoid sin totally. Even if we try to whenever we can. All have sinned, the Bible says, and all fall short of the glory of God. That’s why, even in the Old Testament, there was a system for atoning for sin. Because God knew that after sin became a part of the world, we would sin. Assigning guilt isn’t the issue, Caspar. It’s what you do with that guilt that matters and what you’ll decide to do next.”
I shook my head. “But there are other people involved. Elves don’t believe the same things we do.”
Philip shrugged. “I’m sure they have a belief system, too. But I know what you believe, Caspar. What other people believe doesn’t have any impact on how you bear the burden of your choices or how you choose to let go of that burden.”
I shook my head. “You know, the Bible also says that we will not be tempted beyond what we can handle. That God will provide a way.”
“Do you trust that?” Philip asked.
“Trust what? That God will provide a way? Sure, but what if I choose the wrong path and his way out was on the other one?”
“God isn’t an ethics professor,” Philip said. “He doesn’t give you ethical conundrums just to confuse you.”
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s your role right now.”
Philip nodded. “The point I’m making is that in any of the scenarios above, you can find a way to argue that either action is what’s most ethical. But do you still have faith, in the end, that God is in the picture?”
I folded my hands together in my lap and nodded. “Yeah, I do. At the end of the day, the one thing I’ve never lost is my faith.”
“Then whatever you do, act boldly. You might sin. But avoiding sin isn’t the point. Do you believe that God is in charge? Believe it more boldly still. Because I don’t know about you, but I have faith in a God who often accomplishes the impossible. A God who parted the Red Sea. Who turned water into wine. Who walked on water and rose from the dead.”
“So you’re saying I should just wait for God to come down from heaven and fix everything?”
Philip shook his head. “I’m saying you should follow your conscience. Do what you think is best and trust that in the end, God is in charge. I don’t know what dilemma you’re facing, Caspar, but I believe that even when we don’t understand God’s resolutions, at least in the Bible I read, when I get to the end of it, his plan is good and right and He loves us. Even the worst thing humans did to God in the Bible—crucifying His Son—was used by Him to give us something immeasurably loving: forgiveness. His love is greater than our sin.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I left Philip’s office and returned to my old sanctuary. I didn’t have a clear answer yet as to what I should do, but Philip’s words helped. It was the first time since I was excommunicated from my church that I even thought about thinking about what my faith might have to say about what I was going through.
I knelt at the communion rail. There wasn’t any service going on, and this was no Last Supper, but my mind was on how Jesus had prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was facing the most daunting challenge of his life. He was so anxious about what he knew was coming that the New Testament tells us he sweated drops of blood.
What Jesus decided after saying his prayer was to submit to what evil men were planning to do to him. He allowed them to go through with their scheme to crucify him as if he was a common criminal. But he also kept the faith. He prayed that God would remove the cup of suffering from him, but in the end, he prayed, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.”
I clasped my hands together and prayed the same thing. It became clear at that moment what I had to do. I was going to end up playing right into Bri
ghtborn’s hands. However, I couldn’t let the Furies unleash that earthquake on the city. The consequences of that would be too much to bear.
I might or might not be able to save lives later, but I could save people now.
I was going to help Aerin get the bodies back, and I was going to stop the earthquake. Even if it meant that the prophecy wouldn’t unfold the way I expected it to. Even if it meant that it might set the elementals, and even the giants, against the Furies.
First, I had to go back and tell Aerin what we were going to do. I probably didn’t have a lot of time to rescue the bodies of the drow from the elven legion before, well, the elves either desecrated the corpses, or they’d start to decay. Who was I kidding? Those bodies were probably already decomposing. But it was important to Aerin. The fallen drow deserved to be laid to rest in a way that fit with their own beliefs.
If I was going to cling to my faith in the midst of all this, I had to allow the drow who were helping me to do the same. I had to give them the best chance I could to honor their dead in accordance with their beliefs.
After that, I’d use every ounce of power I had to stop the earthquake. No matter the consequences.
I said one more prayer, the Serenity Prayer, and decided to muster up the courage to change the things I had the power to change. With that, I’d have to accept whatever things that might happen that I couldn’t change. I couldn’t let all those people suffer. I couldn’t let the Furies destroy St. Louis. That was something I did have the ability to change. I had to admit that I couldn’t control how the Furies might react.
I stood back from the communion rail and took a deep breath before I turned and, visualizing a spot on the grass in front of my farmhouse at the junkyard ranch, cast a fairy portal.
I jumped through it and found myself standing where I’d envisioned. No one else was standing there, thank God. It would be one kind of mess if I’d portaled myself into an inanimate object. It would be another thing, entirely, to portal myself into someone’s body.
I walked around the back of the house where the drow campsite was set up. Aerin and several of the drow were gathered around a small fire. I placed my hand on her shoulder.
“Come with me,” I said. “We’re going to go retrieve your peoples’ bodies.”
“Caspar,” Aerin said, shaking her head. “It’s too risky. We can’t do that.”
I shook my head. “It’s important to you. To all of you. You’ve risked a lot already, for my sake. I have to do this, Aerin, for yours.”
A single tear fell down her cheek. “If we’re going to do that, Caspar. There’s something else you need to know.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“They also took our prophecy. The final scroll.”
“The elves stole the drows’ version of the prophecy?” I asked.
Aerin nodded. I bit my lip. “When we were in New Albion, the giants showed me how to open up the final seal. They explained that every race’s final prophecy is unique.”
“The one they call Targigoth told me as much,” Aerin said. “If we’re going to go there and try and get the bodies, we need to retrieve the prophecy at the same time.”
“I’ll be coming with you,” Layla said, stepping up behind me.
“As will I,” Brag’mok added.
“This is a matter of concern for the drow,” Aerin said. “I can’t ask you all to risk your lives.”
Brag’mok shook his head. “We are united behind our same chosen one. We may be different, come from different places, and have different beliefs, but we are still one people. We are now, at least.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to convince my sisters to stay behind either,” Aerin said. “As you said, this is important to them. It’s personal, now.”
I nodded. “Let them come. We’re going to have a lot of bodies to move, and we can use all the help we can get.”
“Do we even know where to start looking?” Aerin asked.
I shook my head. “Not for certain. But we can start at Brightborn’s mansion, where he took me before. I should be able to cast a portal to that room.”
“We learned that the rest of the elves are hiding at the North Pole,” Layla added. “Do you think they’d take them there?”
“I hope not. They could certainly travel there easily enough with the use of their unseelie fairies. I’m not sure I could do the same. I wouldn’t be able to visualize anything there. Still, I suspect that they’ll be here, somewhere in his mansion or at least nearby. Brightborn doesn’t know that I have fairy abilities again. If I’m right, then this is exactly what he wants us to do. If he’s trying to divide our attention between this issue and stopping the Furies, he knows there’s no way we can get to the North Pole in the time we have left.”
Layla shook her head. “Knowing my father, he’ll have some trick up his sleeve to make this more complicated. I doubt he has bodies piled up in the living room of whatever house he’s staying in.”
“I agree,” Brag’mok said. “If there’s one thing we always expected when facing the elven legions on New Albion, it was the unexpected.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I went through the portal first. With as many people as we were taking with us to Brightborn’s mansion, there was too much risk of portaling people into the middle of something or someone. At least if I went through first, and I found one of my limbs caught in something undesirable, I could portal myself out of it again.
The room hadn’t changed. I didn’t have to go back and let Aerin, Layla, Brag’mok, and the rest know. If I didn’t come back in thirty seconds, they were supposed to assume that the coast was clear.
I looked around the room. No elven guards. No sign of Brightborn. No bodies piled up in the corner. I wasn’t entirely sure that Brightborn hadn’t abandoned the place. But I wasn’t going to give up on it until we’d searched the whole mansion. It was the only place I could think to look.
Hell, even if we did figure out a way to travel to the North Pole, it wasn’t like I had precise coordinates for the elves’ whereabouts. Technically, Echor hadn’t even said that they were precisely at the North Pole. Only that they were somewhere in the Arctic.
It wasn’t a small room. I was pretty sure, though, that with fifty drow plus the rest of us, we were probably violating a fire code or something. With so many of us there, if Brightborn was near, he’d realize we were there in no time at all. He’d also figure out, almost immediately, that I had a fairy on my side.
Layla drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. Aerin unsheathed her sword. The rest of the drow did the same. Only Brag’mok left his broadsword at his side. This house wasn’t meant for someone of his stature. Just making it through doorways or down the hall was going to be a squeeze.
We headed down the long hallway that led out of the only room in Brightborn’s mansion that I’d yet to see. The hallway led to an open foyer. If we went to the right, it led to what looked like a small sitting area. There was another opening off of that room leading to a kitchen.
There was a giant staircase, large dark-stained wooden steps with an ornate, carved railing to match. I doubted the bodies were upstairs. Maybe there was a basement. Most of the old red brick mansions in St. Louis had thick foundations and damp basements. There was a small door under the staircase. I imagined it was either a closet or the basement.
I opened the door. The stench of death hit me like a ton of bricks. This was it.
“I think the bodies, or at least some of them, might be down there,” I said.
Aerin nodded and pushed around me. She was eager to find out. I followed her from behind. Layla followed me. Brag’mok stayed upstairs with the other drow. The steps down to the basement were precarious. I doubted they'd hold Brag’mok’s weight if he could even squeeze through the narrow door that led down there.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we saw three drow bodies, stretched out on the ground, completely naked.
“This isn’t
everyone,” Aerin said. “There has to be more.”
“What’s that, lying next to the body on the right?” Layla asked.
“Looks like an envelope,” I said.
Layla picked it up and opened it. “It’s a message from my father.”
“Of course it is,” I said, shaking my head. “What does he have to say?”
“Consider this a gesture of goodwill,” Layla said, reading the elven king’s words out loud. “Good will?” Aerin asked. “If he had an ounce of good will, he wouldn’t have attacked us, to begin with.”
“No one else needs to die,” Layla continued reading. “The rest of the bodies may be collected if my daughter and her two spouses come alone to the place where the princess was granted celestial power. If you wish to avoid more bloodshed, only these three can come, and all three must come together. Do not bother seeking the other bodies elsewhere. I can assure you, you will not find them. Come on Friday, one hour after sunset. Cordially, the Divine Emperor Brightborn.”
“The Divine Emperor?” Aerin asked. “What hubris.”
“I suppose that’s what he intends to call himself as the ruler of his one-world government,” I said.
Layla handed the letter to Aerin. “Friday? That’s almost exactly three days from when we spoke to the Furies.”
“When the earthquake is supposed to happen,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think his timing is accidental.”
“I don’t either,” Layla said. “My father intends to present you with a conundrum. Either accept his invitation and claim the bodies or try to stop the earthquake.”
I sighed. “We don’t know exactly the minute that the earthquake will happen. I doubt he knows, either.”
“He said nothing about the prophecy he stole, either,” Aerin said.
“He can open the seal,” I said. “The same way that he stole the artifacts, the rings, before. He’ll just need to use five elves who can wield each of the elements.”
“Maybe not,” Aerin said. “The artifacts were sealed in a similar way, but not by Taliesin, the original Druid prophet. That may be why he wants all of us there, not just Layla.”
Junkyard Dogma (The Elven Prophecy Book 4) Page 21
