The Last Sacrifice

by Hank Hanegraaff

  Maglorius thought, then nodded. “Leave only one of Jachin’s men with the donkeys. Give me the others as protection for Amaris and Falco.”

  “Yes, yes,” Falco said. “Let’s go. Now. Quickly.”

  Valeria moved cautiously up a twisting street, stepping over bodies of dead soldiers and rebels.

  Her original destination had been the gate north of the Tower of Hippicus, where Joseph had promised to meet after the call of three trumpets marked midday.

  Valeria had fallen asleep the night before believing that her plan to get there with Quintus was simple and safe. She’d intended to get her brother a few hours beforehand, leave the city in the southeast corner through the gate near Siloam Pool, traverse the hill outside the city, and get to the gate by coming into the city from the west side.

  Turmoil and chaos, of course, had destroyed that plan.

  She’d decided the best way to protect Quintus was by helping the rebels, so she had sprinted from post to post, delivering the message from the temple priests. She’d barely stayed ahead of the fighting and, after reaching the most southerly post along the line of the siege, had looked for a way to cross into the upper city. Instead of going around the city, she had no choice but to move through it. Valeria intended to find Joseph Ben-Matthias and arrange for a different time and place to meet. She would look for him at his house first, then at the gate. After that, she’d return to get Quintus from the Temple.

  Breaching the upper city had been easy. With the help of the waves of hundreds upon hundreds of fanatical Sicarii, the rebels had been so successful in routing royal troops and Roman soldiers that the entire line had been broken.

  What had frustrated Valeria, however, was the time it had taken for the battle to move upward. She’d been unable to proceed until the fighting finished, and the soldiers of the upper city had fought hard before finally succumbing and retreating.

  Valeria was frantic with her sense of urgency. For all she knew, Joseph and his promised escort had abandoned the wait for her. Still, even now, with the street ahead of her cleared of battle, she knew that running was too dangerous.

  Shrieks and screams of continued battle came from all directions. Around any corner she might run into a pitched fight or get trapped between rebels moving in on soldiers.

  She was grateful for her familiarity with the upper city. At least she wouldn’t get lost and could take the most direct line toward Herod’s Palace, which was just south of the tower.

  Shouting and cheering ahead alerted her to possible danger at the next turn. She glanced around, wondering if she should take an alley away from it. She decided against it; the alleys were too narrow.

  From behind came the sound of feet pounding the cobblestones.

  A group of rebels!

  She had no choice now but to race forward, hoping there were more rebels ahead, not soldiers.

  When she rounded the corner, she saw that she had no reason to fear for her own safety. Hundreds of men were massed at the base of a wall, cheering on other men with a battering ram, who were on the point of breaking through the gates.

  Valeria recognized the building immediately. It was one of the most famous residences in the upper city and belonged to the high priest of the Jews.

  She moved in behind the crowd, intent on passing by without drawing attention to herself.

  Again, her fears were needless. Every eye in the crowd was on the gates, which shattered as she neared.

  Men poured through, some of them with torches.

  “Burn it,” they shouted. “Burn it to the ground!”

  Valeria began to run again, leaving the riot behind.

  First the house of Joseph, she told herself. Then the gate. She had to find him if she and Quintus had any chance of escaping with Falco.

  This can’t be happening, Boaz thought.

  Unable to visit lower-city merchants, he’d gone to the archives to see if he could find any other contracts of debt placed by Simeon Ben-Aryeh. He’d been inside for hours; when screams and shouts had penetrated his concentration, he’d assumed it was simply part of the ongoing standoff between the upper city and lower city.

  Now?

  After a fruitless search for anything that would help him take the house of Ben-Aryeh without replicating the contracts that Maglorius had already burned, Boaz had consoled himself by returning to the shelves that held the scrolls of all debts owed to him. He did this once a week anyway, spending an enjoyable hour in the archives as he opened each and scanned the contents with smug satisfaction.

  Yet he’d only made it halfway through all his scrolls when his pleasure had been interrupted when peasants armed with swords had flooded the archives, scattering scrolls in all directions.

  How had this happened? Where were the soldiers? Surely the high priest had given orders to protect this building over all others. Without records of debts of contract, the entire economic system of upper city Jerusalem would be destroyed.

  “Out! Out!” shouted some of the peasants.

  Other men, the keepers of the records, needed no more encouragement. They fled immediately.

  Boaz grabbed an armful of the contracts showing debts outstanding to him and held them to his chest like he would cradle a child.

  “Out! Out!”

  Boaz hobbled forward, trying to make it past several peasants who were trying to push down a shelf. The pain of his throbbing broken toe handicapped him from going faster.

  “What’s this?” one of the peasants shouted.

  Boaz didn’t answer and tried to flee. One of his scrolls fell, and he made the mistake of stopping to grab it.

  A rough hand pulled him sideways.

  Boaz yelped.

  Another peasant tried to take the scrolls from him.

  Boaz clutched tighter.

  The first peasant shrugged, then pulled a knife from his tunic and ran it through the center of the scrolls, plunging the blade into the abdomen of Boaz.

  He sank to his knees, again disbelieving the events.

  “Leave him,” the first peasant barked. “The torches have arrived.”

  As quickly as the keepers of the records had fled, so too did the rebels.

  Boaz tilted and collapsed on his side. Blood soaked his scrolls, but he refused to let go of them.

  Moments later, the first tendrils of smoke reached him. He closed his eyes and waited for the fire.

  The Fourth Hour

  “Here’s far enough.” In the street near the house of Joseph Ben-Matthias, Jachin turned to Maglorius and Amaris and Falco. A long dagger had appeared in his right hand.

  His two friends stood on each side, as if braced for attack. They looked formidable; Jachin had picked wisely from men who were accustomed to street crime.

  “No, no,” Falco said. “Look, the boy is at the gate.”

  “Your money first, Roman,” Jachin said. To the two beside him, he spoke clearly. “Watch the gladiator. He’s much faster than he looks.”

  Both men pulled long daggers and held them steady.

  “What is this?” Falco’s voice was high.

  “Simple robbery,” Jachin said. “If the city’s gone to war, we want our spoils now.”

  “But I hired you to—”

  “I know you’ve got a purse full of gold,” Jachin said. “Choose between it and your life.”

  “Impossible. Without gold, I can’t get to Rome.”

  “Shut up.” Jachin stared at Maglorius. “Nothing heroic from you. You might get one or two of us, but you’ll not be able to protect the woman at the same time.”

  “Give him the gold,” Maglorius told Falco. “Some fights are better won by not starting.”

  “And leave me destitute in this city of hell? Do what you’ve been paid to do. Protect me.”

  “All right,” Maglorius said.

  He spun Falco around and locked the man’s throat in a choke hold with his forearm. He tilted Falco off balance. Falco danced on the tip of his toes to keep balanced,
too shocked to sputter even if he’d been able to get breath.

  “Take his money,” Maglorius said. “Then let us go inside.”

  Jachin grinned. “That’s more like it.” Still grinning, he delivered a swift blow to Falco’s stomach, driving the breath from his lungs and making him retch.

  Maglorius’s face darkened, but he said nothing and held Falco fast.

  Jachin lifted Falco’s tunic, held the money belt with one hand, and with his other placed the edge of his dagger beneath the strap of Falco’s money belt and yanked the dagger outward, slashing the leather.

  Jachin stepped away with the purse.

  “I lied about one thing,” Jachin told Falco. “You’re a Roman. You had no choice between the gold and your life.”

  In one swoop, Jachin plunged the dagger forward and ripped upward inside Falco’s abdomen. Falco gurgled in agony.

  “I’ll honor my promise to you,” Jachin told Maglorius. “You can take him and the woman inside now.”

  The other two thugs spread apart, so that Jachin was the center of a dangerous semicircle around Maglorius.

  “Remember,” Jachin said as Falco sagged in the grip of Maglorius, “you can take one or two of us, but the third will kill the woman.”

  “Go,” Maglorius said, pulling Amaris behind him with his other arm. “And pray we don’t meet again.”

  The walls surrounding the palace that Herod the Great had built for himself on the western hill of Jerusalem were almost as high and wide and impregnable as the walls surrounding the Temple. It was here that the religious leaders had fled when it was obvious that the rebels were about to overrun the defenses along the aqueduct.

  Men in robes paced back and forth. Some had climbed to the top of the wall to look down on the fires in the upper city. Others were knotted in tiny groups, discussing strategy and allegiances.

  One man stood apart. Hunched and very still. Leaning on a cane, hands shaking. The high priest, Ananias. A man who should have been in the center, consulting with other men of high power and offering his opinions in return.

  None, however, wanted any association with him now.

  He was surprised at how little he cared, for in the last hour, Ananias had discovered something about himself. His position as high priest meant far less than he’d believed possible after a lifetime of maneuvering to get it.

  Yet his heart and spirit were broken.

  At the height of the tensions, he’d carried a secret admiration and respect for Eleazar. His son had proven to be a man of principle, a man dedicated to serving God in the manner he believed God wanted to be served.

  In the aftermath of Eleazar’s betrayal of his pledge, this admiration was now shattered. Ananias could hardly believe the events. He was still expecting to hear that Eleazar had been killed and that someone else had been responsible for allowing the Sicarii into the Temple and then sending them out into the city.

  He stared at the ground, disconsolate.

  He would be high priest no longer. His son had betrayed him. Jerusalem was truly torn, perhaps never to be mended, and he was fully to blame. These thoughts kept running through his mind, and it took great effort not to weep openly.

  Footsteps on the courtyard bricks slapped an approach.

  Ananias kept his head down.

  “Old man,” came the voice. It was Annas the Younger.

  “Go away,” Ananias said.

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “Go away.” Ananias refused to lift his head to look at Annas.

  “Only after you answer me,” Annas the Younger said.

  Ananias slowly raised his head. He saw that others were staring at them. “What is it?”

  “Tell all of us,” Annas the Younger said, “how it feels to be the architect of this disaster. How it feels to know that history will record your actions. How it feels to know that generations from now, children will spit when they hear your name.”

  Ananias dropped his head again.

  “As I thought,” Annas the Younger said with undisguised satisfaction. “May you live a long time to remember all of this.”

  Maglorius!

  Valeria recoiled in shock as she rounded a street corner.

  There, in front of the courtyard entrance to the house of Joseph Ben-Matthias, was the man who she believed had murdered her father. He had stopped near the entrance, flanked by a woman and the man from Rome, Falco. Three other large men stood at the side. At the entrance to the courtyard was a boy, looking back but edging away. One of the three large men seemed to be arguing with Falco, but Valeria was too far away to hear the conversation.

  Valeria shrank back into an alley and peered around the corner.

  Maglorius!

  What was he doing with Falco?

  Of course, she told herself. Falco would have immediately searched out Maglorius, for back in Rome, it was known that the famous ex-gladiator was a protector of the Bellators. Neither Falco nor Joseph Ben-Matthias could know about the afternoon in the Bellator household on the final day of the riots, when Maglorius killed Valeria’s father.

  What to do? she asked herself. What to do?

  Joseph and Falco were the only way of safety out of Jerusalem for Valeria and Quintus. She’d need to find a way to speak to Joseph privately to ensure that Maglorius did not travel with them.

  As the thoughts ran through her head, Valeria watched intently.

  Then with horror.

  Without warning, Maglorius had grabbed Falco. He wrapped a powerful forearm around Falco’s neck and pulled hard so that the short fat man was off balance and fighting for breath.

  Maglorius kept this grip, allowing one of the other three men to punch Falco in the abdomen. As Falco slumped, the man ripped away Falco’s tunic and used a knife to cut off Falco’s money belt.

  Then, with a violent thrust, the man shoved his knife into Falco and drove it upward.

  Falco convulsed.

  Valeria didn’t see the rest.

  She fled.

  From the top of the western temple wall, Eleazar surveyed the upper city. He knew it was his imagination, but the echoes of the screams of those who had died seemed to linger among the haze of columns of smoke from the smoldering gates and porticoes of the buildings that he and Gilad had agreed must be destroyed.

  Not even the slightest breeze passed through the great city, and in the aftermath of the battle, it was as hushed as if the hand of God pressed down upon it. Without a breeze, those columns of smoke formed straight lines to the heavens, eerily reminiscent of the smoke from sacrifices that spiraled upward from the temple altars behind Eleazar.

  The symbolism of it was not lost on Eleazar. Many of the rebels had sacrificed their lives today for the Jewish people.

  He consoled himself with the knowledge that it was not in vain. He and his priests now controlled the city gates. When Manahem arrived with weapons and men, they would have the strength to fight any forces that Florus might bring against them.

  Furthermore, the power of the upper city had been thoroughly broken, with each column of smoke marking the location of the crucial strongholds destroyed by the rebels.

  Eleazar took satisfaction to see that the Repository of the Archives had been torched as ordered. With the contracts of debt gone, they would earn the gratitude of the people, and all who had been afraid of reprisals could now support the rebels. Eleazar felt no sympathy for the loss of wealth this represented to the citizens of the upper city; they had grown wealthy because of Roman support for their establishment.

  Nor did he feel any pangs at smoke rising from Agrippa’s palace. For more than a century the kings of Judea had served Rome far more than they had served the Jews.

  Eleazar tried to force himself to be unemotional about the burning of the building most symbolic of the corruption of service to God—the palace of the high priest.

  Despite the fact that he’d learned from Annas about his father’s public vow to throw the first stone at Eleazar’s exe
cution, Eleazar could not escape doubts about his own actions that he knew he’d carry to his grave. As high priest, Ananias would be forced to fulfill his duty. Indeed, among the Jews were fathers who had helped execute sons and daughters for the blasphemy of proclaiming that the Nazarene named Jesus was the Son of God and the promised Messiah.

  Could Eleazar convince himself in turn that it had been his duty to betray his father by ordering the silver trumpets to be blown five times? In his mind, he could make an argument that, yes, it had been his duty. But in his heart, he could not. For this was his secret to keep to his grave: Eleazar had not ordered the call of the trumpets after careful consideration of the situation but rather because he’d been stung so badly when he read the words of the transcript.

  His father had been prepared to sacrifice him to save the upper city.

  So Eleazar in turn had sacrificed his father to the Zealots.

  There was no turning back.

  Part IV

  23 months after the beginning of the Tribulation

  AD 66

  Alexandria

  Province of Aegyptus

  Patmos

  Province of Asia

  I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

  —Revelation 1:9-11

  Mercury

  Hora Sexta

  “Make your move,” Nigilius Strabo snarled at the large black goat that glared at him from a distance of less than five paces. “Come on, then. Try me out.”

  Strabo was almost thirty years old, with a shaved skull and a flat, wide face. He was a dwarf—his full height barely allowed him to stare eyeball-to-eyeball at the goat—and he stood on tiptoe to gain a height advantage.