TCG

After the search under the altar fell through  SAiC Tolson left the temple and took Sullivan along with him. Special Agent Mark Felt was fine with their departure as  conflicting agendas were never productive. That left only the B  Wing of the  temple to search. He remembered Robyn's  note expressing  regret at  the current conditions there.

It was set up as  a historical  museum, although under  the new management of Prophet  Hansen  the Kuwapi  contribution to  the Church of Green Dome had been stripped out  with little thought of preservation. Some of the more valuable  pieces were missing entirely. But something about B Wing stayed with  Mark Felt for the rest of his  life. Perhaps it was  the variety  of genuine articles dating back  to the  Civil War. Agent Felt found the experience profoundly immersive.

After that Felt went to Klaus Hansen's office, which was also in B Wing, and he walked right in.

This prompted  an  angry  objection  from  Hansen. "You're in violation of  the judge's  orders, Felt. You  know you  can only search those rooms which are locked."

Sheriff Walker held up his notebook and said, "Ah yes, but this room was locked at the time we served the warrant. In fact, your presence here is interference with a murder investigation."

Walker and Felt then  searched every corner  of the  office and found nothing. Finally, Felt upended the  waste basket  on the floor. A large book with a green cover fell  out. "What have we here?"

Walker thumbed through the pages and saw that it was the text of the Green Book, holy writ  for the Church, entirely  written by hand. He said,  "Agent  Felt, this  is  called  the  Printer's Manuscript. It  is said to have  been copied in the  other world from what they call the White Scroll."

Felt said,  "Remarkable,  sheriff. One  would  think  something irreplaceable  like  this  would be  considered  priceless.  Yet somehow it ended up in the trash. I wonder why."

Then it was  Felt's  turn  to pour  through  the  pages of  the manuscript. When he saw the  pages in  the very  front of  the document he said, "Now that's very cute. This is like a kind of baby book for the Church. All the important decisions and events are recorded here, like this  entry from 1931 marking when Klaus Hansen became  the Apostle. Mr.  Hansen, would you  please write your signature in the sheriff's notebook so I can see if they're the same?"

"Special Agent Felt, I  assert my Constitutional  right against self-incrimination."

"I see. Oh,  look  Gabriel,  it says  here  Doriel resigned  as Apostle, yesterday, on the very day your wife was murdered. Were you present when this entry was made?"

"Yes sir, Special Agent Felt."

"Do you remember about what time of day it was?"

"It was about eight o'clock in the AM, sir."

Sheriff Walker wrote that in his notebook.

Felt said, "Gabriel, I may need  you to testify in  court under oath to the same effect." He continued to pour over the entries. "I see  there  has  been  some  shuffling  of  Church  officers recently.  Hansen resigned  on  the tenth  and  was replaced  by Doriel Shybear."

"That's disputed," Hansen said.

"Now let's see who  replaced Doriel as  the Apostle.  Why look, it's Klaus Hansen once again! And he signed it on the twentieth. Gabriel, did you witness Klaus Hansen making this signature?"

"Yes sir."

"So let's back up a bit to an entry made in 1866. It says if the Prophet dies or resigns, the Apostle becomes the new Prophet. So here's Klaus Hansen as the new Apostle, with the Prophet having only an hour or two left  to live. Please Gabriel, tell me, what happened immediately after Klaus  Hansen became, once again, the Apostle of the Church."

"He had his own breakaway Church down at the bottom of the hill, with only white folk there. He said we should go meet with them and announce  the division in  the mother Church was  healed. So Paul left  with Kim,  and Klaus  took me  separately in  his own truck. But  on the way down  we got into a  heated argument over race or something,  and he just pulled over and  made me get out before driving off. So I walked back up to the temple where Dory was waiting."

Felt said, "The reason  I'm asking,  Gabriel, is  there's three final entries  here, one  declaring Kim to  be dead,  one making Klaus  Hansen  the  Prophet,  and one  making  Paul  Bergin  the Apostle. Did  you, as the  Deacon, witness any of  those entries being made?"

"No sir."

"I'm trying to ascertain the time."

"Dory said no one returned to the Temple before I did, and that was about nine thirty in the morning. It was about ten when they returned, and they told me Kim was dead."

"Sheriff, what time did old Tashunka arrive at your station and report the murder?"

"It was just about noon."

"I'm going to need to corroborate  this with Dory, but  what we have now  is Klaus Hansen  affirming, in writing,  that Kimberly Zinter, or Kimberly Shybear if  you will, was dead approximately two hours before Tashunka discovered  her corpse. Mr. Hansen, do you have anything to say before  you are placed under arrest for murder?"

"You can't tie  the  murder weapon  to me.  You  can't tie  the footprints to anyone.  All you have is the word  of an aggrieved husband."

"You had motive. You led the White Wing out  of the Church over the marriage of  Gabriel and Kim, and only returned  when such a marriage was made forbidden as an article of canon law."

"All that means is the new  Prophet had more common  sense than the old one did."

"Ah, yes, but that ruling left the original  marriage in place, til death do they part and  all that. And you cannot account for your whereabouts between  the time when you left  Gabriel on the side of the road and the  time you returned to the Temple, which also happens to bracket the time of the murder."

"The girl was already dead when I got down there," Hansen said.

"So you admit you were both there, and you deliberately made the case federal to get the  FBI's attention. Well, now  you indeed have the FBI's attention, Prophet Hansen. The floor is yours."

"I will speak only to  your superior officer, Special  Agent in Charge Clyde Tolson."

Klaus Hansen hobbled into the interrogation room with his ankles cuffed. He said he  would  only speak  with  Tolson, so  Clyde consulted a brief Felt had put together for him before he spoke.

"Mr. Hansen, we placed your vehicle at the crime scene."

"With tire treads, Clyde? How many different kinds of tires does town as small as this have?"

"Gabriel Shybear is willing  to testify  that you  declared the girl dead before  her body was found by the  old Indian, who, by the way, immediately notified the sheriff while you did not."

"I am the Prophet, Clyde, as you  just said. If you  keep me in custody Gabriel Shybear  will hold Last Rites for his  wife in a private ceremony and you will never  see the Golden Gift. But if you swear to  drop the charges, I'll make her  Last Rites public services. At the end you and  your agents can descend on Gabriel and scoop up the Golden Gift at your leisure."

Mark Felt gave a start,  but he  knew the Director  would never tolerate letting Hansen go free. No judge would instruct a jury to ignore the other  set of  footprints, but  even if  one did, Bergin's defense team would argue for a mistrial or at the least get his conviction overturned on appeal.

Sheriff Walker responded the way  Felt initially wanted  to do, "You can't be thinking of letting him go. We've got him cold for conspiracy to commit murder at the very least."

Felt said, "Sheriff, I'm  dying to discuss  this with  you, but this is not the time nor the place."

Tolson found that remark interesting. "Where are your thoughts trending, Felt?"

"Sir, when the Director sent me here he told  me the case would be independent  of your  DECON work  but unfortunately  here's a situation where the two investigations  have run right into each other. The  Director's orders to  me were to, quote,  'mesh with Tolson where  practical' so I will  look to the senior  agent on site for guidance."

"Excellent, Felt. Then let  us go forward  and see  what shakes out. Prophet  Hansen, you have  my word  as a federal  agent the Bureau will not charge you with  the murder of this girl. But if this is  just a big  bait-and-switch operation, if I  don't have the Golden  Gift in my hand  at the conclusion of  all this, you will be right back in here and all bets are off."

After he wrote his second report to the Director, Felt had hours to pour over the book that Robyn had brought  to his attention. It was a meticulously-detailed account  of the Red Wing  of the Church in Headwater, but there was also background material that he found hard to  accept as  true. Some of it was  parallel to stories he remembered from the book of Genesis in the Bible.

At the command of his  father King Melchiyahu of  Salem, Prince Melchizedek was sent  to the  other world  to test  whether men could remain loyal  to an  eloah with  only a  trace of  direct contact between them. He brought the  Killing Relic,  a weapon made by the hands of Elyon himself, that he  might be protected in his quest. No weapon was  remotely like  it. When it was brandished, the Killing Relic bore unmistable witness that Elyon was not a mere  figment like  the gods  that multiplied  in the imagination of the men of Earth.

The prince rose to the surface  of Lake Tana with  his supplies packaged in a  clever way  to keep  them dry. He decanted his comestibles on the shore of the  lake and moved them  to a raft made from  trees  he  felled and  shaped  with  Killing  Relic. Melchizadek also had a  quantity of  gold on  hand to  trade to replenish with local goods what stock he consumed.

From the mouth of the lake the river flowed thirty miles to the Blue Nile  falls,  where  Melchizedek  was  forced  to  abandon his raft and  build  another one  below  the cataract. Further downstream he negotiated  the  rapids of  the  upper Blue  Nile gorge, held to be unrunnable by the locals.

When he was safely below the rapids, Melchizedek sat in the raft and drifted through deserts  with no  potable water  except the river he floated on. He passed water beasts and human onlookers who dared not  approach. At length he  floated into  the place where the Blue Nile merged  with the  White Nile to  become the Nile river proper. It was much warmer in this part of Earth than in Kemen and it took many days for Melchizedek  to put the heat in the back of his mind so he could sleep without a struggle.

In a town on the lower  Nile delta Melchizedek traded  his raft and some gold  for  camels  and supplies  to  make an  overland journey. His ultimate destination was  the marshy lands  far to the east were the Euphrates  and Tigris rivers meandered through marshlands and silt islands before merging with the sea.

As he was commanded, Melchizedek remained alert for any man who would suit the purposes of Bat-El. Rather than taking a direct path across the Empty Quarter, Melchizedek journeyed north-east through the fields  and towns  of Canaan  and Lebanon  until he reached the town  of Harran where the Damascus  road forked with the road to Nineveh.

In the marketplace Melchizedek encountered a man  who had grown disgusted with the variety of  religious practices in  his home city of Ur. He was in engaged in a loud argument with his father and by overhearing all this, the prince learned  the man's name was Abram.

Abram was a  successful sheep  and cattle  rancher who  lived a semi-nomadic  life on  the  rangelands around  Harran while  his father lived in the town  itself and  ran a shop  selling items associated with the  worship  of multitudous  gods. Terah sold carved idols for dozens of  different gods, all of  which Abram complained were absolutely meaningless to him.

He said to Terah, "Father, you  cut down cedars and  oaks which the real  creator planted and  also sent  the rain to  grow. You grow cold,  so with part  of your wood you  make a fire  to warm yourself and  bake bread, and from  the other part you  make the image of  a god, then  fall down before  it and say,  'Rescue me from this weather.' And it never  comes into your mind that this deaf and mute block of wood you  carved with your own hands is a complete fraud!"

Melchizedek was interested in this exchange, so  he entered the shop and began to  inspect the  rack of  idols on  display. The angry words of  father  and son  dwindled  to silence,  because Melchizedek was a tall  and striking figure,  and there  was an other worldliness about him that went far beyond mere stranger.

After he  had  made  a  complete tour  of  the  idolatry  shop, Melchizedek begin unpacking his  gold on the  edge of  the shop facing the street,  as  though  he were  preparing  to buy  out Terah's entire stock.

As Melchizedek anticipated, this drew the attention of five men who approached with  swords drawn. They demanded the gold  be handed over to them. At this time the Killing Relic, the weapon fashioned by Bat-El himself, made  its first appearance  in the history of Kemen and Earth. The artifact was the size and shape of any normal sword hilt. But when it was squeezed  firmly in Melchizedek's hands a roaring black  shaft emerged from it which was about the thickness of a spear.

The harder Melchizedek squeezed, the longer the black beam grew, and whatever it touched simply disappeared. Indeed, the reason it made a sound was  that air was drawn  into it all  along the length of the beam.

One of the thieves Melchizedek judged to be the  leader was cut into two equal pieces starting from the top of his head. Another thief was decapitated. This was sufficient to convince the other three robbers to flee.

It was not  Melchizedek's purpose  to kill  them. only to stop the commision of  the crime,  and simultaneously  establish his credentials with Abram and Terah. Abram came before Melchizedek and sank to his  knees. but Melchizedek bade  him to  ruse and said, "Abram, son of Terah,  go forth from your  father's house and from your  kinfolk to the land of canaan.  there Bat-El will make of you a nation, and he shall bless you, and your name will be great  among men.  He shall  bless those  who bless  you, and curse those who curse you, and all the earth shall find blessing in you. Those are the words of Bat-El the Most High God, lord of all the earth. What say you to these things, Abram of Harran?"

And Abram lifted his eyes to him and said, firmly, "No." It took Melchizedek a moment to comprehend what Abram said, as it was so unexpected. Abram rose to his feet then and walked  over to his father, where he took him gently  by the arms and  undertook to explain his rejection of Bat-El's command.

He said, "my father is crippled. He does not earn enough at his livelihood to support himself. We do  not always agree, but as I love my life, I can never turn  aside from my own father for all the days he  is a wayfarer in this world." Then Abram fulfilled the purpose of his visit and delivered to his father two living lambs from his own flocks, one to kill and eat, and the other to sell for a little money to  buy the things he  needed until the next time Abram came in from the open range and visited him.

Melchizedek nodded in understanding. He restowed his gold and they quietly left the shop, careful not to tread on the fortress of dignity that Abram had asserted with his refusal.

Melchizedek departed  Harran and  took  the  left-hand fork  to Nineveh, and  thence by stages  to sumeria, even to  the largest city in the  world, Ur,  at the  mouth of  the euphrates,  with nearly seventy thousand souls. In all his travels on  Earth he never met anyone  like Abram, yet it was not  the last time they met.

At the Last Rites the following day Klaus had absolutely nothing to say about Kim  at all. He never mentioned her  parents. He never mentioned how  she  had  gone missing  for  the last  two months, and how she had been in quarantine for six months before that. Hansen didn't know the  girl, he didn't know  her family, nor her friends, nor their families. He had no feelings for her what- soever, other than  the fact  that he  hated her  with an abiding hatred  for marrying  Gabriel Shybear  and thus,  in his view, she ripped  apart  the  One True  Church. So instead of giving  anything like  a decent  eulogy, Klaus  embarked upon  a particularly malicious Bible study.

He spoke of Solomon's strange  wives, "which burnt  incense and sacrificed  unto  their  gods." He quoted  from  the  book  of Nehemiah: "Shall we  then hearken unto you to do  all this great evil, to transgress against our  God in marrying strange wives?" But most of his time was spent in the tenth chapter of the book of Ezra. Hanson cited the place where it  says, "And Shechaniah said unto  Ezra, We  have trespassed against  our God,  and have taken strange wives of the people of the land".

Hansen went on to recite,  "And among  the sons of  the priests there were  found that had  taken strange wives: namely,  of the sons of Jeshua  the son of Jozadak, and  his brethren; Maaseiah, and  Eliezer,  and Jarib,  and  Gedaliah.  All these  had  taken strange  wives: and  some of  them had  wives by  whom they  had children. And Ezra said, 'Now therefore separate yourselves from the people  of the land, and  from the strange wives.'  And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month..."

After an hour of this even the Bunners were frantic, desperately wishing he would stop. Eventually he ran out of scripture.

The temple organist took her  place at  the edge of  the raised chancel and began to play a Bach chorale prelude,  "I Call You, Lord  Jesus  Christ". The congregation  sang  the hymn  in  the original German from the  words printed  in the  hymnal, though very few members still  understood German anymore. The singing was therefore  pretty  lousy,  but  the  underlying  music  was gorgeous. Mark Felt, sitting in  the  pews, took  note of  the musician, who  looked  remarkably like  the  deceased. Sheriff Walker told him the girl  playing was Kim's twin  sister Robyn, whom he once interviewed on the afternoon of the  murder but he had not been able to contact her since. "Shall I hold her?"

Special Agent Felt replied, "No. I think, Sheriff, that any need to question her further has been entirely overtaken by events."

Wearing white robes in hez  role as  the Minister of  the Final Rite, Deacon Gabriel Shybear stood behind the  embalmed body of Kim, which  lay face  up on  the altar,  also clothed  in white. Sofie Krause came out of the audience to stand next to him. She was wearing her green school uniform, like she  always did when she went to Temple, since it was the most  feminine garment she owned. Perhaps it was the only feminine one.

Special Agent Bill Sullivan gave a start. "Sir, that's the girl I've been  looking  for!  Sofie  Krause!" Someone behind  him snickered. The way he put it sounded hilarious.

Tolson restrained him with a hand on his arm. "Don't move unless she tries to walk out of the temple. Oh yes, we have her, but my top priority is the artifact."

"Most of you know me," Sofie told the  congregation. "I'm Sofie Krause. Kim was my age. Most of you know that she and her momma have had a pretty lousy time  of it lately. Kim's father died in the mines about nine months back. In school Kim always called me a scrub, but  she never, ever turned  me away when I  told her I needed  help with  my  class  work. Somehow  she  had  a way  of explaining things to  me better than the teachers  did, and that kept me in D territory. Maybe, if she lived, she would have been a teacher herself one day. You already know she had a voice like an angel, and she could play the piano and the organ. I mean she could really play!  It turns out her twin sister  Robyn can play pretty good too, as you have  just heard. Thanks for coming here and doing that for us today, Robyn. Me and my friends had dreams of pressing a swing record with her, but now they're dashed flat and that's a terrible waste!"

Then Sofie fell silent and stepped back from the lectern but she remained standing next to Gabriel on the chancel. She wasn't a good enough actor to summon up any teares.

Gabriel did not follow up with  a eulogy of hez  own, though he longed to  express the  love che  had for his  wife, or  even to mention  that she  had been  his wife. Things had already gone overlong with Hansen's sermon, and che did  not want antagonize the congregation  even more  than  Klaus  Hansen's sermon  did. Instead che said, "On the surface this would seem  to be a time of sorrow. But upon reflection, we see how that sorrow is really a sign of a  deeper love. If Kimberly were a  stranger to us, if she had no one among us who cared about her, we might feel, only a  kind of  indifference. Certainly  not bereavement.  And that, brothers and  sisters, is  the second most-important  purpose of the Last  Rite. We  gather together in  sorrow to  recognize and celebrate the love  that underlies our grief. So now  let us bow our heads in prayer.

"Bless us, O Lord, as today we have come together to commit the body  of our  beloved  sister in  faith,  Kimberly Anne  Zinter, directly into  your hands. Sown  in corruption, let her  body be raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonor, let her body be raised in your glory. Sown in weakness, let it be raised in power. Sown a natural body, let her be raised a spiritual body as we eagerly look for the life to come when she receives again the many years that were taken away from her on Earth. In the name of your only son Yeshua we pray."

"Do you believe,  as I  believe, that  when Prince  Melchizedek first came to Father Abraham, he unveiled our most holy relic as a sure sign of our Lord's divinity?"

Some members of the crowd, who  knew the correct way  to answer the Call and Response of the  Last Rite, said, "I  do." Gabriel produced the self-same relic then, and held it high  for all to see. Clyde Tolson leaned forward in his pew.

"Do you believe, as I believe,  that when the Lord  our God was made manifest  on this very spot,  the Island in the  Sky, Chief Wanica took possession of our most holy relic, which we name the Golden Gift?" A more robust response came from the congregation. They were catching on.

"Do you believe, as I believe, that when the Kuwapi people were united with the  pilgrims led by our first  prophet, Mark Lange, the bodies of four fallen  warriors of the People were committed into the hands of our God by  the Golden Gift as a sign of their everlasting union?" A very hearty "I do!" erupted from the rest of the church.

Then, before the  eyes of  everyone in  the sanctuary,  Gabriel ignited the Golden Gift and used the hissing black shaft to make every scrap of Kim's body disappear. He even took shallow swaths of the  concrete altar  along  with  it, although  Gabriel  was usually much more careful not to do so. Periodically a new altar surface had to  be poured  and  cured. Che knew such  measures wouldn't matter anymore after this last Last Rite.

Clyde Tolson was frozen briefly as he took  in this astonishing sight, but  he  quickly  recovered   and  gave  the  signal  to go. Sheriff Roddy Walker,  however, did  not  recover. He sat transfixed, realizing his lifetime of unbelief had been entirely misguided. But that, after all, was the  most important purpose of the Last Rite.

The sanctuary of  the Green  Dome Church  was constructed  as a hexagon,  with aisles  forming  six spokes. Clyde Tolson, Bill Sullivan, Mark  Felt, Dr.  Trochmann,  Deputy  Lurz and  Deputy Holsinger descended toward the  altar, each man  descending his own aisle, making straight for Gabriel, who saw them and quickly made the Golden Gift disappear into his little  ready pocket of space-time. Clyde Tolson was the first to reach Gabriel, and he tackled him, flipping the young  nephil face down. "Where is it, you son of a bitch?"

Gabriel was cuffed, poked, and prodded by four different men.

Some members  of  the  congregation  began  to  stream  out  of the  temple. Others remained in  their pews  like the  sheriff, bewailing that they had come to  full belief only after  it was too late. Some who had seen the Last Rites before shouted angry oaths at Klaus Hansen for  permitting outsiders to  witness and hence defile the Sacred  Relic. This was the  Abomination That Makes Desolate predicted in  scripture. The Temple was defiled beyond redemptipon and the Church existed no more.

After the  Sheriff recovered  and  rejoined  his deputies  they arrested Gabriel  and Sofie  and  took  them away. Tolson and Sullivan knocked over the massive altar in their search for the Golden Gift. They looked for any trap doors in the floor of the chancel where Gabriel might have tossed it, finally even tearing up the chancel carpet.

Mark Felt didn't seem eager  to help  them. He looked at Robyn sitting at the organ, who winked at him. Felt sensed the search would be futile and Tolson  would not  get what he  was looking for. He also saw Klaus Hansen standing there with his mouth wide open in shock  at how  things were  turning out. Felt came up behind him  and cuffed his hands  behind his back before  he had time to offer any resistance. Hansen's shock was doubled.

"Hey, jerk!" Hansen screamed at Tolson. "We had a deal!"

Tolson ceased from his labors to look at Hanson and saw how Felt had already cuffed him. Good. Save him the trouble of doing it himself. He glanced at Sullivan,  then dropped  the corner  of carpet he was holding. Sullivan followed suit. Tolson said, "We did have a deal, Klaus. And I don't have  the Golden Gift. That means all bets are off, just like I told you."

Gabriel and Sofie were thrown into separate but adjoining cells. Tolson and Sullivan showed up to interrogate them but they spoke no words to their captors. Instead they put on implacably stony faces and silently  conversed with  Robyn by  way of  Doryphone until the bureau men gave up and went back to their trailer.

Mark Felt shared lunch with the sheriff, then spent the rest of the afternoon in the town's  library writing his final report to Hoover and reading more Red Wing lore from Leliel's book..

In the countryside near Salem  Ophan Lilith invited  Michael to come before her father King Melchiyahu and preach what he would. Michael agreed to speak, but only if the encounter was open for any of the people to witness. So Melchiyahu ordered servants to prepare the amphitheater where he frequently  thrilled visiting nobles with exhibitions of combat.

Lilith attended as well, dressed for once like the Adanite Ophan she was. These were the words the prophet Michael spoke in Salem as the white and orange suns sank together in the west. In years after the sermon was remembered as the Sunset Discourse.

"The One became aware of itself when there was a separation from Other, and there was Two. The interplay between the One and the Other became personified  as The Third. The Third  gave birth to all things.

"Know that The Third, whom  the dwellers of Kemen  name Bat-El, gives  rise  to things  without  effort,  therefore she  creates without  possessing, and  accomplishes  without expectations  of praise.

"Bat-El intervenes in  the  people's affairs  only  when it  is necessary  for their  well-being, not  from a  whim, nor  from a desire to demonstrate divine power.

"The spirit is fulfilled by its activity. The body is fulfilled by its substance. The people  are fulfilled by living. The noble are fulfilled by good governance. The noblest king calls himself the servant of the people.

"When the palace is splendid  but the  harvest is poor  and the storehouses are sparse,  when the noblelen wear  much finery and gorge on meat and wine, but they carry weapons because they fear the ordinary people, the city is far from the way of Bat-El.

"Winds flatten houses. Dams are silted up. Roads are washed out. Insects decimate crops. Vegetation grows to cover landmarks. The noblest king knows all these things, so he rejects the delusion that he can control the world.

"A moral code represses the people. When a king attempts to rule by intelligence he cannot  anticipate every emergency.  When he abandons  rigid  law  and cleverness  the  people  spontaneously return to good order.

"A storehouse filled with gold cannot be protected indefinitely. If you pile up great wealth in  one place, it is  the gold that will own you as you bend your mind and all your strength to make it secure.

"Diamonds are not essential for life, yet they are priced higher than any other jewel. Without water life is  impossible, yet it is priced lower  than any other commodity. The  one who embraces Bat-El makes himself like  water, dwelling in unbuildable places and treasuring simple things that are considered worthless.

"The great city that does  not act  toward its neighbors  in an arrogant way has  the good will of the smaller  cities, and they willingly join the greater. The  small city that does not resent its lower station  enjoys the benefits of being  united with the greater one.  In the face of  an enemy anyone can  ally with the strong, but to ally with the weak takes true courage.

"With ten people, three seek long life because they fear death. Three seek an early death  because they are reckless. Three find death because they seek to live their short life to the fullest. Only one neither  fears death, nor hates life,  nor worries that life is too fleeting. The yan who embraces Bat-El does not grasp life, so how can life be taken from her grasp?

"When hellberries flourish  it  is impossible  to walk  through them. When  they store their  juices for winter the  way becomes clear  again.  Flourishing is  not  eternal,  retreating is  not eternal,  but flourishing  and retreating,  taken together,  are eternal. From the  beginning the generations have  come and gone in good order.

"Use honesty to rule a city but use deception to fight a battle. The skillful commander pretends he is incompetent. He makes his brigades  appear to  be divisions  to demoralize  the enemy  and cause him to quit the field without fighting.

"When peace negotiations fail the skillful  commander mourns as though he as already failed. When he obtains victory he does not gloat.  The  commander  who  is  thrilled  at  the  prospect  of bloodshed  can never  enlist the  willingness of  his forces  to endure hardship."

"The thralls of Elyon are said to be superior to animals because he can control his own environment, but the Student of Bat-El is superior to the thralls of Elyon because she can control her own behavior.

"The thralls of  Elyon are  called famous,  but the  Student of Elyion sets an example by her deeds and becomes influential.

"Thralls of Thaumuiel accumulate many riches but cannot keep all of them safe. The  Student of  Bat-El has  few desires,  and so holds on to all that she has.

"The thralls  of  Elyon  demand  to see  good  in  others,  and attribute the  cause of  a tragedy  to unbelief  or a  defect in ritual,  but  the  Student  of Bat-El  is  too  busy  mercifully addressing the  needs at hand  to render judgment, and  she does not live for yesterday or tomorrow.

"The thralls of Elyon can do he wills to do, but he cannot even determine what  he wills.  The Student of  Bat-El makes  her own awareness  of  injustice the  determinant  of  her actions.  She diminishes the  overflowing bounty  of the  corrupt to  meet the needs of the impoverished.

"The thralls of Elyon put their riches and knowledge on parade, but the  Student of Bat-El does  not tell all that  she has, nor all that she can do. '

"The thralls of Elyon will never admit error, but the Student of Bat-El considers those  who  point  out her  faults  to be  her greatest teachers.

"The thralls of Elyon speak only of the dead traditions of their longfathers of old, and by  coercion leaves them in  force, but the Student of Bat-El cultivates the  new as the coin to buy her way, and she knows that fully half of a dialogue is listening.

"The thralls of Elyon may refuse to grow or  merely say that he is willing  to grow, yet  in truth he  lives only to  quench his appetites that  he might feel  sated. But the Student  of Bat-El does not  remain idle; rather  she grows, fulfills  her passions and becomes joyous.

"The thralls of Eluyon value only that which he does not and can not have, and which do not multiply when shared. But the Student of Bat-El empties her purse  and finds her heart  being filled. She contents  herself with those  things which are  possible for her to obtain.

"The thralls of  Elyon  evaluate how  much a  yan  is worth  by considering only how much she possesses and what she might do to benefit hymself. But  the Student of Bat-El looks to  what a yan does for others and who that  yan protects, for that is what she is truly worth.

"The thralls of Elyon consider yen vile and always falling short of his ancient  standards.  The Student  of  Bat-El extols  her sisters  over all  existing  standards because  when  yen do  go astray it is  always induced by the repression  induced by those standards.

"The thralls of Elyon examine everything about  who is speaking except her words,  and hears only what fits  his prejudices. The Student of Bat-El recognizes her own tendency to have a bias and tries to set it aside so  that she may understand what is really being said.

"When a Thrall  of  Elyon suffers  an  indignity he  mindlessly retaliates  by  committing  another indignity.  The  Student  of Bat-El knows  the greatest revenge is  simply not to be  like he who did  the injury. The greatest  conqueror is the yan  who has conquered herself."

Michael concluded the Sunset Discourse  by healing many  of the angels who came to hear hym  speak and it was  his sincere hope that one day the instruments and medicines he used would not be viewed as magic but as the  mere tools of an artisan that anyone couls master.

Then King Melchiyahu sent word  bidding Michael to  come before the throne, but as with the Sunset Discourse it was not given as a royal command, but as a humble request.

After he entered the castle and drew near to  the Cherub's seat Michael was announced by Lilith, who at her father's command was still in the temporary role of herald. No titles were given. It was known that Michael was a lan of the  city, the commoner son of a glassblower.

King Melchiyahu said, "Your  sermon refered  to the  Student of Bat-El as feminine. Are len excluded from your teachings?"

"Not at all, Your Majesty," said Michael. 'When I speak in those terms I wish to convey an image. A lan who embraces Bat-El will have a gentle heart and sees  others around him as  another 'I' yet  he will  retain his  strength and  his male  nature, as  he rightly should."

"My own daughter has always had a fierce heart, yet she has come to admire your teachings, and I am not the only one to mark how this has gentled her."

Prince Melchizedek raised his eyes to take in Lilith's red dress and he could not recall the last time he had seen her wear one. He noted how her eyes seemed to be drowning in Michael and in an instant he knew what was happening to his sister. He asked, "Who are you really, Michael?"

Michael drew near to Prince  Melchizekek and said,  "Your Royal Highness, for  years you were not  to be seen in  Salem but only your father knew that you were  in the other world searching for a man who was not content to worship the gods of his fathers."

The Ophan was stunned to silence.

King Melchiyahu said,  "My son  found  a man  named Abram,  but Abram's  loyalty to  his  own father's  well-being exceeded  any loyalty to what  was, to him, an unknown  god. Melchizedek found no other of his like, and when he returned he reported failure."

Lilith said, "I was told nothing of my brother's absence."

"Is it not some measure of who I really am," Michael said to the prince, "that I know what even your sister does not? Yet I will offer one more sign, one far more convincing."

Bat-El had no power to open a space-time bridge  in Kemen, only did Elyon or Chemosh, but  the Abram  case remained a  piece of unfinished business. Communicating directly with Elyon, Michael demanded the appearance  of a  link. A bubble grew  to envelop Michael and through it Earth could be seen. Desert heat seeped through the wormhole into the Cherub's throne room.

Michael stepped out of  the spherical  mirage and  said, "Ophan Melchizedek, know  that the father of  Abram is dead. Now  I bid you to  return to the other  world and complete the  errand your father laid  on you. Tarry not  to take anything that  you think you will need on Earth. I will provide them for you myself."

Melchizedek seemed to be  frozen in place. Hy firt glanced at Michael, then at his father, and he had nothing to say.

His father said, "Make haste, my son. Do as Michael commands."

So Melchizedek entered the ball  of distorted desert  light and seemed to shrink as he walked away towards Harran.

Elyon, as he had one once  before when Melchizedek was  sent to Earth, did not raise the bubble before snapping it shut, leaving a crater on the floor of the king's audience hall.

Then in the other world did Melchizedek complete his errand and bring Abram and  his descendants  into a  covenant relationship with Bat-El.

The covenant was accompanied  with a  name change. Abram meant 'the father is exalted' which  had glorified Terah  rather than his son. In the ritual sealing the covenant Melchizedek changed his name to Abraham, which meant 'father of many nations'.

The Abrahamic Covenant was sealed when Melchizedek took a cow, a goat, and a ram and split their carcasses in two. Then Abraham, his wife, his son, and all his servants passed between them. By this ritual Abraham told  Bat-El, 'If I  ever break  faith with you, may I be cut in half like these animals.'

Previously Abraham's  worship of  Bat-El  had  been a  personal devotion. All of the  interactions had occurred  solely between Abraham and   Elyion  and  were  mediated   through  the  Ophan Melchizedek. Sarah embraced Bat-El because she loved Abraham and she was his  wife. Abraham's servants embraced Bat-El  simply because Abram was their master.

But with  the  introduction  of  circumcision  the  worship  of Bat-El  became  corporate  worship, something  embedded  in  the culture rather than a personal  choice. Even infant males were circumcised. Anyone not circumcised was cut off from the people, so to speak.

But there was a benefit to circumcision not  intended by Samael when he demanded the  practice as his  attempt to  sabotage the testing. Circumcised men were chafed day and night. They lasted longer during lovemaking and that resulted in a  happy lady who was less likely to commit adultery.

When Abraham's son was about fourteen years  of age Melchizedek said to him, "Take now  your son Yishak and  go to the  land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will show to you."

And the countenance of Abraham  fell. At first he searched the face of  Melchizedek, guessing  it  was  a  bad joke. Then he suspected the  Ophan had gone  insane. He was tempted to refuse outright as  he  did  once  before in  Harran. After that  he considered offering a defense of his son.

In the end Abraham remembered the covenant, and his affirmation of loyalty to the one he knew as Bat-El. Melchizidek says this Bat-El now requires the life of his son? So be it. "Let my word be true. I will obey my God, even though I  find his demands to be hateful."

When all was ready Abraham left his flocks grazing on the plains nigh to the coast. There he left his wife and all his servants. With Yishak at his side they were led by Melchizedek east among treeless hills with the Killing Relic as surety against any who would waylay them.

On the first night,  Melchizedek asked Abraham  to look  at the stars and see if he could count them. "So shall your descendants be," said he. There are only four thousand stars visible to the unaided eye but Abraham got the point. Bat-El would bestow upon him much progeny. For his part  Abraham agreed  to have  only Bat-El as God and trust that she would always  do what she said she would do. It was the first covenant made between the divine and the mortal on something of an equal basis.

Abraham possessed many animals and great riches. He was already living in the golden age as far as he was concerned. Abraham was living a full  life and  he accepted  that he  was mortal  like everything else in the world.

The only thing remaining that Bat-El could give Abraham was the assurance that his name and his blood would be carried into the future by a  people who  would  live in  the land  he had  been promised.

Two days and three nights passed but they had seen no game along the way. When they drew near to  Mount Moriah  and Melchizedek pointed out the hill to them. Yishak asked, "Where is the animal for the offering?"

Melchizedek said nothing. Abraham deflected this question, yet he could not bring himself to lie to his  son. He said, rather, "God himself will provide the animal."

Yishak was excited to see what  sort of beast God  was going to bring  for the  sacrifice  and he  ran ahead  up  the hill  with youthful energy. Abraham said to Melchizedek, "When  it is time you will help me restrain my son."

They caught up with the  boy on  the hilltop and  Yishak called out, "Father, there's nothing here!"

Abraham had a length of rope and was tying loops in it. He said, "Join me here son, and help with this." Yishak promptly obeyed his father. Thus distracted, Melchizadek took the opportunity to seize the boy.

Yishak didn't cry out at first because he didn't even understand what was happening until Abraham and Melchizedek had lashed him securely to a  flat  boulder  that would  serve  as the  altar. Abraham would  never forget  his  son's  utter terror  and  the betrayal he must have felt.

After that Abraham didn't need to work up the  will to slay his own son, he was actually in a hurry to do  it. Each instant the helpless Yishak lay in mortal terror of his own  father tore at his heart. Abraham couldn't stand it. Melchizedek was barely in time to restrain him. He shouted, "Enough! Do not harm the boy!" To be certain, Melchizedek used the Killing Relic to cut the lad free once more. Yishak stood at a safe distance and watched his father's face work through a storm of dark emotions.

At length Abraham said, "So. A day of testing?"

Melchizedek nodded in the affirmative. "It is a day that will not  be forgotten  while cold  and heat,  seed-time and  harvest remain. Now  God Most High  knows now you will  withhold nothing from him, not even your only son."

Abraham longed to embrace Yishak but saw how the boy stood well Abraham away. said, "Could there not have been another way?"

Melchizedek said, "It would  be difficult  to explain  the full background of  the controversy, but  know that the enemy  of man has  made  certain  claims  and  God has  chosen  you  and  your descendants to answer them."

Abraham lamented, "What I  dread most of  all is  answering the hard questions of my wife after  Yishak has spoken to her of all this, which he undoubtedly will."

Even as he spoke a  fold-door appeared  on the hilltop  and the crack of a whip was  heard. A ram rushed through  the opening. With one smooth stroke of the Killing  Relic's immaterial black shaft Melchizedek separated the head and body of  the animal as it emerged from the bubble.

Melchizekek stepped inside the bubble  and said to  Abraham, "I will  return  to  Earth  when  Yishak is  of  age  to  have  his own  wife." Then the fold-door  winked  out of  existence  and Melchizedek was gone with it.

True to  his word,  when  Yishak  was  seventeen years  of  age Melchizedek returned to Earth  and journeyed  once more  to the town called Harran in the land of Abraham's kin. There he became acquainted with Bethuel, who was the son of  Milcah. Milcah was the wife of Nahor. And Nahor was Abraham's brother.

In the household  of Bethuel  there dwelt  a young  woman named Rebekah. She was Abraham's great niece,  and therefore Yishak's first cousin once-removed. Eyeing her, Melchizedek told Bethuel it had fallen  to him  to  find a  wife for  Yishak from  among Abraham's kin.

The Ophan could, at need, dispense of  Abraham's entire estate. He had brought as  much as  ten mules could  carry, as  well as precious stones and jewelry from  Kemen itself. All these riches he dangled before the  eyes of Bethuel,  which prompted  him to say,  "Rebekah, will  you go  with this  man?" Thus Rebekah was formally asked to take her place in the epic set in motion when Elyon inserted herself into human history and commanded Abraham to go to the land of Canaan. But the display of wealth did not sway Rebekah. She wanted to know more about Yishak himself.

So Melchizedek spoke to Rebekah  of the time three  years prior when as a boy Yishak feared losing  his life at the  point of a blade. Hy remaining carefully  vague about  the  fact that  hy hymself  had  relayed  the  kill order  from  Elyon,  the  eloah worshiped by Abraham as his deity.

And Melchizedek told  Rebekah  how the  incident caused  Yishak to develop a  more  profound affection  for  his mother,  while deliberately neglecting to tell her  how Yishak in  fact almost never left his  mother's  tent after  he  barely escaped  being sacrificed to his father's god.

The prince used all the statecraft hy had learned at the foot of his father  King  Melchiyahu. Yet Rebekah did  not  make  her decision on the  basis of  Melchizedek's testimony  of Yishak's personal character.

Melchizedek had presented hymself to Rebekah and  her family as courteous,  humble,  and  devout. The gifts  were  obligatory. Something still seemed a bit off, but she decided to proceed on a hunch. She judged Melchizedek to be a good man, for a mere man she thought him to be. To Rebekah it stood to reason  that if this servant  was a good  man (for a simple  servant Melchizedek held hymself  out to be) then  hyz masters, her kin  Abraham and Yishak, must be good men  as well. So she answered her father Bethuel by saying, "I will go."

When Melchizedek returned  to  the oasis  at Beersheba,  Yishak brought Rebekah into his late mother Sarah's tent  and took her as his wife, and he loved her. So was Yishak comforted after his mother's death. Melchizedek, in a  sense, had  provided Yishak with a replacement mother. Rebekah sensed this and felt perhaps a twinge of  regret, but  she was  an honorable  woman who  had assented to the marriage sight unseen.

Then Melchizedek received word  that his father  Melchiyahu had died in his sleep,  making him  the king of  Salem by  right of succession. So Melchizedek bid  farewell to Abraham. He passed out of all knowledge of those who dwell on Earth and came there not again. The task laid upon him by his father  to set aside a holy people unto Bat-El had been fulfilled.

Late that  evening,  at  an hour  selected  by  Robyn,  Gabriel produced from his hidden space-time pocket the same Golden Gift that Prince Melchizedek once possessed. Che cut hez way out of the cell through an exterior wall of the sheriff's station. Once che was outside che cut Sofie out too. Dory and Robyn were just pulling up in the  woodie. Sofie looked back  and saw  how the holes were carved as silhouettes  of people, as though  she and Gabriel had escaped  by  running right  through  the wall  like Merrie Melodies  cartoon  characters frequently  did. Her own escape hole was in the shape of a girl in pigtails and a dress.

"Very funny, Gabe."

It did, in fact amuse Mark Felt to no end when he saw it in the morning. But seeing the  cuts, which must  have been  made with very little noise lest  the deputy on  watch was  alerted, Felt knew Tolson was not chasing a mere figment.