by T. K. Thorne
He puts a friendly hand on my back, and my heart catches.
“What brings you here? Curious of the rites?”
Trying to remember how to breathe, I am far too distracted to answer. The spot on my back where his hand rests burns, as though with fire.
Is it a holy fire?
And, just as important, does it linger longer than a friendly man-to-man touch?
And yet again, that would be a matter to be judged in light of one’s customs, and how would I know the customs of his people? All these thoughts race through my mind until I remember he has asked me a question.
“What?” I say stupidly.
Nami, who sits at my left side, gives a quiet whine, her attention on the trail.
A portion of the light from the city is blackened by the column that is Mika. He stops, seeing me. “What are you here?” Disapproval stains his voice.
I ignore him because I am busy being furious with myself. I have Raph alone and do I reveal my soul, my longing? Do I uncover my true self so he can see past this disguise of my boyish dress?
No, I sit in silence, unable to answer even the simplest question. The lost opportunity carves an ache in my belly.
Mika remains standing, but Raph and I sit at the outcrop’s edge while the moon rises, silvering the sea’s dark waters. Raph waves a hand toward the salt formations at the water’s edge. “Like snowdrifts.”
As traveled as I am, I have heard stories of snow, but never seen it. My mouth is dry, but I clear my throat, taking advantage of an opportunity to engage Raph in conversation, even if it is about the weather. “I have never seen snow. Is it like white sand?”
Raph smiles. “More fragile, but hold in your hand.”
I frown. “It is frozen water, is it not? Ice?”
“Yes, it a form of water is. If apply heat, it melts to water, but snow is lighter, like—?” He looks to Mika, who stands on Raph’s other side, holding his staff, a long rod that is taller than his head.
Mika shrugs. “Clouds?”
I am intrigued by the concept of holding clouds in my hand, but the wind shifts, bringing the scent of coming rain and roiling dark clouds to obscure the moon’s sliver. Before the night is over, I fully expect to be soaked by a downpour, but I am not willing to leave Raph’s side. We are close enough that he has actually brushed my arm twice.
While we watch, a line of firebrands forms in the streets below. From our vantage, it appears a blazing snake, weaving a path through the town toward the temple. The sound of drums slides under my skin, pounding my blood to match its rhythm. If it were not for my desire to stay with Raph, I might have heeded the pull to join them.
Over Raph’s shoulder, I hear Mika’s voice. “This is not The Way.”
Lightning flashes across the sky, and for a moment, night is day.
“They are not our people, brother,” Raph says. “You cannot expect them to honor our truths. They have their own.”
I like that.
Another burst of light in the sky.
“Truth is truth,” Mika says stubbornly.
Below, I see someone exit Lot’s house and recognize the almost square shape of Lot. Is he sneaking off to the rites or looking for his missing guests and kin?
Nami whines and presses against me. I stroke her and find she is trembling. “What frightens you, Nami?” I whisper.
At that moment, the air sharpens, lifting every hair on my arms and the back of my neck, as though the sky has drawn a breath. From the corner of my eye, I catch a flash and look up at Mika who stands beside us, looking down at the city. His staff is alive with a corona of light. I have never seen anything like it. Countless tiny particles of blue light dance at the tip, down the shaft, and over his hand and arm.
I grab Raph, digging my fingers into the muscles of his upper arm. He glances at me in puzzlement, then follows my gaze up to Mika, and I hear the suck of his breath. We are silent, all of us, frozen at the wonder and beauty of the softly sizzling light.
Twice more lightning stabs white fingers into the dark sea below us. Thunderous blasts follow, but we cannot take our gaze from the cobalt fire that engulfs Mika’s staff and hand.
When the corona fades away, a third bolt crackles into the sea, accompanied by a loud clap of thunder. Lightning ignites a patch of floating pitch the size of Lot’s roof, which floats slowly toward Sodom. Wind spreads the fire’s oily black breath over the walls and into the city like an augury, where it entwines with the torch smoke of the marchers winding their way toward their destination—the temple where Baal waits for the appointed day to join with his Asherah and arouse the earth.
CHAPTER
14
The Lord appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day. He looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground.
—Book of Genesis 18:1,2
WHEN WE RETURN TO THE house, Lot is waiting and falls on his face before Mika. When Lot turned and looked up into the cliffs, he must have seen the holy fire on Mika’s arm and staff.
“I and my family are yours to command, angel of the most-high god,” he says, lifting his face from the dust, but keeping his gaze averted.
“Angel” in the old stories can carry a connotation beyond a god’s messenger, acknowledging a people a step closer to the gods than we, and it is clear Lot is using the word with this meaning.
Mika puts out his hand, “Rise up, Lot.”
“I cannot, lord,” Lot insists, trembling. “Is El angry at the rites of Sodom? My family will not partake of them. I will speak against them!”
I, too, am shaken by what I have seen.
“I am not your lord or your god,” Mika insists.
“You are the mouth through which El speaks. I saw you hold holy fire. I saw it!”
Mika starts to speak again, but then stops and shakes his head. There is nothing he can say. I saw the fire too. Even Raph seems affected, his reddish complexion almost pallid.
If Mika is really Mika-el, an angel of my god, does that mean his brother Raph is also an angel? I do not know how to digest this. Am I in love with an angel? In the stories Sarai had us memorize, such did not turn out well.
Only Nami appears unaffected by the presence of holiness. She strides into Lot’s house with regal poise, as if it is now part of her territory.
Finally, Lot composes himself enough to stand, and I slip off to my pallet, though I am unable to sleep. I keep seeing Mika’s staff and arm engulfed by cold fire and the black smoke from the burning pitch spreading across the city. What does it all mean?
THOUGH I SLEEP fitfully, the city’s dawn catches me dozing. Nami’s cold nose on my neck rouses me from the warmth of my pallet. I throw on my garments. Everyone appears to sleep deeply. Raph has his arm thrown over his cheek. Mika’s back is to me. I am certain whatever they carried to the overlook is back inside the box that lies between them. Perhaps they meant to hide it in the cave, but my presence changed their plan. When we came down from the cliff, Raph carried it wrapped in the bearskin that now again covers the chest. I would love to slide that skin aside and open the box, but I do not dare. Raph is a warrior and probably sleeps as shallowly as a wolf. I have not decided what Mika is. But whatever is underneath the fur, it is something they wish to keep secret.
Alone, Nami and I slip onto the street that runs the length of the city from the northeastern gate to the southern gate and out to the massive burial grounds. The road is stark, deserted by all but an occasional reveler staggering back to his house. Even the dogs are still asleep, and we are not challenged. The east tower gates remain open, and just outside them, we turn this time to the right, walking beside the eastern wall to the river that runs down from the cliffs. It turns with the slope of the land and feeds the fields below. If the Vale relied on water from the Dead Sea, it would be a desert. Most wadis are dr
y gulches or riverbeds that only fill when the spring or winter rains come, but a few, like this one, are fed from sweet water whose source is underground.
Sodom’s idea of plumbing is the privacy behind one’s house. I prefer a place between boulders. Nami is not so particular. The fresh waters of the wadi run nearby, and we both are happy to drink from it. I take the opportunity to wash.
It is still early, and on our return, I climb the cliff where the blue fire struck Mika. Below, a thick mist covers the calm silk of the Dead Sea. Like the city, she gives no indication of the violent storm that plowed her surface last night. Nor is there sign of what burned, although not far out from shore, I can see men in small boats hauling in the pitch that floats like black flatbread on the surface.
The wind shifts, and the stink of rotting eggs rides with it. The Dead Sea’s nature is complex. It is beautiful, yet poisonous. No life can survive in it. From its depths comes the black pitch and noxious gases, yet the pitch has made many men wealthy, including my father, despite his protestations to Lot. The run to Egypt is a long, hot journey but one with great rewards. With such a dowry, even the problem of my slightly flawed nose can be overcome.
I slap my leg and Nami bounds to my side. My heart is light. Somewhere in the turmoil of the night, I have decided to shed my persona as a boy and marry Raph, although I will not do so until I can speak with my father. He will be pleased and know what to do. No one is his equal at negotiations. I will talk Raph into joining us. Mika can come too, if Raph wishes and if his angel’s mission allows it. And then I will not have to leave Father or my beloved caravan. How can my father not approve? Though Raph is not of our tribe, his people and ours are connected, as Lot said, and he is an angel’s brother. That has to be something of account.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Chiram’s son, Danel, arrives with instructions from my father. With the money earned from the black donkeys, we are to buy five camels for the desert journey to Egypt and return with them and with the pitch pots he has purchased to Lot’s tents.
Lot advises us on the location of the best pitch, and we purchase the camels outside the city gates where traders come with livestock to sell or trade. Other merchants who cannot pay the tax required for a place inside the Gate are here as well. Young slave boys run about bare-chested, identifying customers for their masters and hawking the extraordinary quality of their particular animals or merchandise.
We hire help to pack the camels with the pitch and our water, which are the heaviest items. The rest goes on our donkeys. Danel brought Philot and two other donkeys with him. Though Mika and Raph left most of their possessions at the tents on Lot’s land, they brought one donkey between them to carry their belongings and the box of mystery. Raph has retrieved that beast from the stable and piled the fur-covered chest and their pallets atop her. Between the donkeys and the camels we have purchased, we do not have much we have to carry ourselves, a luxury.
We are careful to stay on the road after we leave the city. The stone surrounding the Dead Sea is easily tunneled, and people have brought their dead here since ancient times. Before the more modern mud-brick charnel houses were built, families brought their dead to the shaft-graves that still pocket the land.
Once we have reached Lot’s tents on the plain and rejoined my father and the caravan, we will carry the pitch to Egypt. It is no small task to journey to the Black Land, and it is not one I look forward to. But since it appears Raph and Mika will travel with us, this trip will be different. My confidence in my father’s negotiations skills is high. Zakiti is not a poor man. He will be happy I have a solution to the problem of my being a woman.
BY MIDDAY, WE are well past the burial grounds and into the lush plain. It is constant work to keep the camels from grazing. I prod their legs with my stick to encourage them forward. Raph matches pace with me. As always, his presence makes my breath short.
“Adir, you miracle are with animals.”
I smile, pleased. “But I know little of weapons, as you do.”
The look he gives me is one of surprise. “How know you?”
At that moment, the lead camel angles her head toward a succulent patch of grass, and I raise my rod, stepping to her flank. She mouths, as if chewing, a sign of submission, and turns back to the path. I shrug. “It is obvious.”
“How?” he asks.
“In the way you move.”
He arches an eyebrow. “I see. And Mika? What your wise eyes do see in him?”
I consider his question. “Mika moves more like a prince or king, as if everything he does is special, only he does not realize it.”
“He not king is.”
“‘King’ is not the right word,” I admit, “but I do not know what the right word is.”
“You asked him?”
It was my turn to be surprised. “No.” My gaze finds the back of Mika’s broad shoulders. “Would he tell me?”
A fond, amused smile flickers across Raph’s face. “Not hopeful. He shares little.”
I look up at Raph, following the square lines of his jaw, covered in copper beard. He is so beautiful. Will he mind having a wife who is not?
My gaze returns to Mika. “You saw the same thing I did … on the cliff?”
He hesitates. “Yes, I saw.”
I wait, sensing his discomfort.
“I not know,” Raph’s gaze also wanders to Mika’s back. “I think he not knows, but I heard tale of such once.”
“Of someone holding blue fire?”
“No, but herder told of storm where blue lightning danced on his horns.”
I frown. “… danced on his horns?”
Raph shakes his head in frustration. “The horns of his rams.”
I consider this. I don’t know what the blue fire was, but I don’t know what lightning is either or how a flower blooms. That is the gods’ business. And priests’ business to determine what such things mean or if they mean anything at all. Lot, however, has decided it meant Mika was El’s angel, but if blue fire has played on rams’ horns—I will wait and decide my own mind.
IT IS DUSK when Nami alerts us to trouble. We left the city later than planned, and our pace has not been swift, so Danel has decided we will camp for the night and reach Lot’s tents in the cool of morning. I lie my pallet against the back of one of the kneeling camels. Through the night, her body will give off the heat she has soaked up during the day. Because there is plenty of dried food for a meal, we make a fire only for warmth. When fresh, pellets of camel dung make an excellent fuel, as their bodies suck all the moisture out before making the deposit. When we travel through the desert, I will collect it with the other boys … or perhaps not, if I announce myself as a woman. Collecting camel dung is not my favorite task. This is a compensation, I suddenly realize, for giving up my boyish disguise.
Nami, who had curled beside me, is suddenly on her feet, a low growl in her throat. Raph and Mika have noticed and come to stand on either side of her, staring into the darkening landscape. I am not concerned. Raiders do not come into the Vale. It is when we brave the desert, their land, that we must have guards and wrap ourselves in wariness.
With that thought comes the rumble of hooves out of the gloaming, and my heart rises to my throat. I am wrong. There is just enough time for me to grab Nami when a raiding party of armed men erupt from the dark beyond our fire and surround us. Small horses with arched necks and wide, flaring nostrils pull four chariots.
I am stunned to see such here. A horse this far south is rare and a chariot rarer still. All are dressed for war, three men to each chariot. The drivers keep their attention on the horses, but the black eyes of the bowmen and shield bearers glare from beneath their pointed helms. Drawn arrows menace our hearts. I have examined such bows in Egypt and Mira. Made of horn, wood, and sinew, they have extraordinary power. At this range, one might pierce me completely. I gape at the arrows’ bronze tips. These are not the people of the desert with whom we normally trade. They are warriors and somewhat familiar, yet I
cannot place them. What are they doing here? And, more importantly, what do they want?
Raph slowly releases the hilt of his dagger. Resistance in the face of such numbers would be a foolish gesture … and certain death. When the chariots halt, Raph steps forward.
Two men ride their horses, one a gray mare and the other a black mare. These men do not carry bows because they cannot easily shoot arrows from horseback. From their dress and the easy skill with which they guide their horses, I know them to be Hurrians, horsemen of the north. When I was eight summers, my father engaged a Hurrian to teach me to ride. I begged him for a horse of my own, and he purchased Dune, despite Chiram’s complaint that the horse was clumsy compared to the donkeys and ate too much.
Casually, the man riding the black swings a leg over and jumps down. Unlike the charioteers who are clad in a heavy linen shirt sewn with metal disks, he wears the lighter robes of a desert nomad. A curved sword and axe hang at his belt, but he touches neither weapon, well aware of the arrows ready to spring should we pose a threat.
“What you do want?” Raph asks. He seems calm. I fear for him and admire him for posing as our leader and putting himself at risk for us.
The man looks Raph over with a steady eye. “What do you have?”
Danel steps forward then and shrugs. “Only what you see, a few camels, a few worthless items, but know they belong to Zakiti, son of Yakud, a friend to the desert people.”
“I do not know this man or care whom he calls friend.” The warrior turns his attention back to Raph, but the sweep of his gaze includes Mika, who has stepped forward to stand with his brother. “Who are these?” he asks Danel.
“They are holy men,” I say quickly.
The man’s gaze flicks over me, as though I am an annoyance unworthy of his attention, but he signals his men, and several leap from the chariots to pilfer through our belongings. One discovers the fur-wrapped box from Raph’s donkey. He pauses to finger the thick bearskin, itself worth several donkeys and maybe a goat too, and then unwraps it, revealing the box of polished wood. Though my fingers have run across the smooth surface in the dark and known it to be skillfully made, this is the first sight of it. The wood is a fine cedar with a carving of a crescent moon positioned like a smile, cupping a five-pointed star.
