TC3

KNOT

TC303: Long before the war Lilith's grandfather old King Gordiel hitched a wagon to a nearby tree with a knot so elaborate no one could fairly begin to unravel it. At that time an oracle said (or Gordiel said that the oracle said) whoever untied the wagon would rule all of Kemen.

Malphas knew of this  prophecy, of course. When he was within sight of Salem he found  the wagon  and beheld what  the people called the Gordian Knot. For long hours while the army made camp he took his own turn at it.

TC304: This Malphas continued to do until a hashmal of the Eyes of Shemhazai arrived on the scene. He looked askance at what he took to be a move to usurp the power of Rimmon himself.

Malphas took great offense at the insinuation. "Am I to believe the Eyes of Shemhazai give any credence at all to the babblings of local would-be seers and prophets?"

"What you believe or what the Eyes believe matters not one whit, Lord Malphas. What the rabble in aggregate believes is entirely another matter."

TC305: "Then you may be pleased  to report to King  Rimmon I am thoroughly satisfied this knot is  secure and the wagon is going nowhere.  Have your  len lash  Hamon's  cage to  this wagon  and arrange the army on the slope along every side."

Lilith padded out her ample curves and applied false facial hair to offset the soft  yenish features that  belied her  status as commander of  the most fierce  brigade on Kemen. Also, with the change that came  with her  horns, she  could speak  in a  deep baritone at will.

TC306: This along with an eidetic memory and other sundry skills were part of what Hamon  called the standard toolkit  for B'nei Elohim.

Lilith dressed as one of  the poor  farmers in the  vicinity of Salem who had  been pressed into menial service  at the business end of a whip but were not  made part of the  army. She drifted among the soldiers  ladling out  water and  calmly taking  much abuse. In the very center of the camp she noted the wooden cage that had been Hamon's drafty home for much too long.

TC307: The cage was covered  with a  canvas to keep  Hamon from freezing to death. It would not do,  as Malphas knew  well, to break  the single  thread  keeping himself  and  his whole  army alive.

Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted her to attend  to  Hamon. She climbed up  onto  the wagon  and appeared between  the canvas  and  the  cage with  a  stoneware pitcher of water. For light  she donned  a  lamp  on a  green head band made  by Bat-El  herself, a  gift from  early in  her discipleship.

TC308: The brilliant white light of the headband  came from the body of  Bat-El  herself,  Hamon  once  told  Lilith,  down  an intangible  thread  finer  than  a  spider's  silk. The canvas covering his cage  was thick  enough that  no light  escaped to betray the princess. He was overjoyed to see her and willing to overlook the  beard. For the benefit of  the guards  nearby she grunted, "Here's your filthy  swill-water you  clutty bastard!" But she framed  her thoughts  to  say "THE  KETTLES ARE  SECURE ABOARD THE SHIPS."

TC309: "Hold the ladle still you bafty  hoach!" muttered Hamon, getting into the spirit of their little game.

Again, Lilith allowed a set  of words  to stand clearly  in her mind: "THE SHIPWRIGHTS SAY THE KETTLES WILL TAKE ON SEAWATER AND TIP THE SHIPS SO FAR HALF THE OARS WILL  BE AIRBORNE." And such was her new  talents following  the Change  that Hamon  clearly heard this speech in his own mind.

He replied in the same mode, "YOU HAVE DONE  WELL. THE OARS AND THE LEN TO ROW THEM WILL NOT BE NEEDED."

TC310: "Take the water or  leave be, you sputtering  ball bag!" Lilith grunted for  the benefit  of  the guards. To Hamon she handed over her head lamp and asked, "WHY MUST  I TO BRING THIS TO YOU?"

Hamon, somewhat surprised, explained once more he  could open a portal that leads to his body as  a living sun, but it takes two elohim to make a bridge. "YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS," he added.

"You smelly half a loaf!" she blurted, and mentally she asked the question again with a slightly different emphasis.

TC311: Hamon took  the pitcher  because he  really was  thirsty and he  drank  half  the contents  while  marveling  that  even mind-to-mind communication  was subject  to  misunderstandings. Then he said, "THIS ARTIFACT  IS UNIQUE IN KEMEN.  NOTHING ELSE SAYS 'LILITH WAS  HERE' WITH NO MISTAKE. I WANT  MALPHAS TO KNOW YOU CAN GET TO ME AT ANY TIME.'"

Lilith nodded, now seeing Hamon's plan in full. For the guards she said, "Keep your stinky grabbers inside the cage!" She took back the water and climbed down.

TC312: The city of Salem proper lay on a  rocky island across a narrow strait of  the Aramel Sea, which made it  such a hard nut for land armies to crack. At dawn twelve warships emerged from the seaward side. To the soldiers of  the Adanite army  it was evident something was wrong with them. They pitched in the water after the manner of toy rocking horses, and the sea behind them literally boiled, sending clouds of vapor  skyward. Their sails were all furled and their rows of oars remained idle.

TC313: One of the ships broke  off from the squadron  and raced ahead to the shore. Just before landfall it heaved  back once more, and with a final burst of boiling water beached itself on the  sand like  one of  the aquatic  mammals of  Earth. The sea swirling around its immersed aft end slowly cooled.

Shemhazai chose to  make this  vessel  an example  for all  the others. His dragon Demonstroke flew low along the shore from the north and set the wreck ablaze  to the great joy  of the entire Adanite army.

TC314: But something was amiss. The hulk was ablaze, to be sure, indeed the pyre sent up a great tower of smoke, yet the screams of any len trapped inside could not be heard. And it proved to be no deterrent  at  all. The eleven remaining  ships of  the Salemite fleet went on to beach themselves in like manner.

Then Malphas sent two of every  three len of his  army forward, but he kept a third part of them to  safeguard the cage holding Hamon. Boarding the ships, the soldiers found no crewlen within.

TC315: Belowdecks each  ship had  two large  bronze tank,  with pipes leading aft, but none could puzzle out their purpose.

Hashmal Bezaliel said, "This has all the makings of a trap, sir. Melchiyahu invites us  to cross  over  to the  city where  some unpleasantness lies in wait."

Malphas said, "I deem your counsel to be good. We will not take his bait, but we will take his ships, and assail Salem at a time of my own  choosing, not that of the king." And he ordered many of his len to take the oars.

TC316: One-third of the Adanite army stood  idle. Another third took to the ships. The final third heaved the vessels  off the sand with raw muscle power.

Two wings of  the army  of King  Melchiyahu emerged  from thick woods to the north and  south where  they had lain  hidden even from the dragon. The Salemite army and the Fallen Angels closed on the beach like the jaws of some huge beast.

The bronze kettles in the ships flooded and tipped half the oars of all eleven ships entirely out of the water.

TC317: Some of the ships  tried to  paddle further out  to sea, others tried to return to the beach, most of  them just twirled in place. All of them caught  fire. Nothing restrained Bat-El after Shemhazai set a precedent with the attack  by his dragon. And this time screams were most assuredly heard.

But the Adanites on the shore had simultaneous attacks on their left and right flanks  to worry about. Malphas ordered len to cart Hamon  in his cage down  off the hill toward  the center of his lines.

TC318: Yet the battle showed no sign of letting  up. Hamon as a shield was effective only against  Lilith as a weapon. And the dragon was no help on the field, lest Shemhazai destroy his own forces along with the Salemites.

Malphas scanned the chaos and  spotted Lilith fighting  her way toward the hill behind his  army where the wagon  remained tied up. A sudden fear gripped  him. Could Lilith solve the Gordian knot and inherit the promise of the oracle to rule all Kemen? He moved to cut her off.

TC319: Alone on the summit they both dismounted and squared off with swords in hand.

"Have you come to answer for Imrael?" she taunted.

"I will never allow you to test the oracle of the Gordian Knot!"

"This?" She pointed the tip  of her  blade at  the wagon. "My grandfather was either half-mad or his knot is  the most famous practical joke on Kemen."

This only elicited a  flurry of  clashing swords. Lilith drove Malphas back and said, "I live in Salem. I could have tested the oracle at any time!"

TC320: Lilith's logic didn't seem to penetrate. Instead, Malphas lunged forward. His blade slashed Lilith's bare midsection and he attained first blood.

She feigned shock at the  injury and slowed her  dance. Malphas saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was  enough. Seeing her  slim  opening,  Lilith let  fly  a ferocious kick  of one booted foot  to his face and  Malphas was laid out cold  with his  sword separated  from his  unconscious hand. Lilith tossed it out of reach.

TC321: With her prey  lying helpless Lilith  briefly considered making an end of him Before she met Hamon Lilith would have done just that, to avenge Imriel. Far better to let Malphas live and explain this defeat to his god.

She glanced at the forgotten  wagon fastened  to a tree  on the hilltop and ran to it instead. She flipped the drawbar up to the seat. Like everyone who came before she made no headway with the knot. Adanite skirmishers, she saw,  were climbing the  hill to aid their commander.

TC322: With no time to  lose Lilith  simply hacked at  the knot with her sword until it fell apart. The wagon was free, but she was certain grandpa didn't have  that solution in mind  when he created the knot.

Gravity made the wagon roll downhill. Lilith jumped up onto the seat and took the drawbar to steer it. The sound of her wheels drew the attention of  the Adanites. They gaped at  the horror rushing down upon them faster than any horse could drive it. All of the len fled as her gamble played out.

TC323: Hamon saw what she was trying to do. He flattened himself against a side of the cage that he guessed would avoid a direct impact.

Lilith's wagon collided with enough  speed to shatter  both the cage and the  wagon to  splinters and  she was  unceremoniously dumped on her ass. But somehow they both survived the collision. Lilith was more bruised than she had ever been  in her life but Hamon was free of  the cage  and the  enemy was  scattered into isolated squads.

Raphaela came to Lilith's aid.

TC324: When Raphaela  was satisfied  Lilith was  not in  mortal danger she said, "The enemy no longer has a  unified army. They are fleeing by platoons and squads. Shall we cut them off?"

Lilith said, "No, the king has left one route open, inviting the enemy to retire. The trickle  out the  back door will  become a flood.  We  must never  engage  in  slaughter  for the  sake  of slaughter dear Raphaela. It is enough that we have won the field today."

"Happy is the city that thinks of war in times of peace!"

Sarathiel rejoiced, and said, "Happy is the city that thinks of war in times of peace!"

TC325: "Happiness has nothing to do with it, Raphaela. The clash of arms is the worst experience the dwellers of  Kemen can ever experience."

"And  Your   Royal   Highness,   what   of   the   vainglorious thrill-seekers who claim to love warfare?"

Lilith said, "They are either lying and have never tasted actual combat, or their mind has failed them."

But something more  pressing  weighed upon  Lilith's mind,  the well-being of her husband. She hobbled over to the big pile of sticks that had been his cage.

TC326: "No more adventures for now," she told  Hamon while they each made  certain the  other  was  not seriously  hurt. "I've cracked a rib, for one thing. And I am thankful for the gift of shunting  the  pain  away.  But  this  battle  would  have  been unnecessary if you had just let me carry out my plan at Adan."

"You would have been killed."

Lilith touched the halo made  of horns  she now wore. "But you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yan in  Kemen who does not blench at the thought of death."

TC327: "I would unleash an army  of them. But tell  me, why did you throw away everything you've worked for since you met me?"

"I don't understand what you just said."

Hamon held up one end of  the wagon's rope. "I'm talking about the Gordian Knot.  I'll admit, cutting it was  probably not what the oracle  intended, but now  you are  destined to rule  all of Kemen. Fate! The unreformed Lilith must return."

"'Must she? Do you think Shemhazai will have his way forever?"

Hamon slowly shook his head.

TC328: What if the oracle was  really saying the spirit  of the new Lilith will take over Kemen? The Lilith who changed --" her eyes brimmed with moisture and her voice broke, but she went on. "The one who changed on  that unforgettable day when  she first heard you speak."

The last word was a sob. She regretted the wasted years.

Hamon ran his  hand over  Lilith's  side and  somehow took  the underlying pain away. Lilith no longer had to use her new talent to dull her agony enough to breathe deeply.

Hamon straightened up from his examination of Lilith's injuries. He played the oracle just then, perhaps as a kind of postscript to the seer inspired by (or perhaps hired by) old King Gordiel. He said, "It will take many centuries to play  out, my beloved, both here  and in the  other world.  But you broke  through more than  just my  cage here  today. If  every person  in every  age becomes willing to do for each  other what you did for me today, then love won. Don't you see? Once and for all, love won!"

TEMPLE

TC330: The town of Headwater,. true to its name, is  where the Squaw River begins,  but  it’s also  where  the railroad  and pavement end. Other than a few dirt roads and  old wagon tracks the land north, west and south  of town is the  biggest void in the lower  forty-eight United States. Lone Mountain, as it was known to the Kuwapi  people (Green Dome  to white  trappers who first rode  through here) lay  just west  of the town. The view from the top of the high hill was out over thirty-five miles of nothing.

TC331: A little to the  northeast of  Headwater is a  pillar of rock carved  by wind  to look  like an  Indian woman  carrying a papoose in her papoose, hence the name Squaw River. West of town the river, really just a big  creek at that point,  bent around the south and west flanks of Green Dome and  poured out from an underground cistern of warm water. Vapor was visible in winter. The spring was an anomalous thermal feature of  the high plains that properly belonged, perhaps, one state over in Wyoming.

TC332: The upper vale of the Squaw River was a steep gorge that flared out into a four acre flat piece of land near the source. This had been the bed  of a lake in  ages past. The river road skirted the periphery of this lake bed and rejoined itself after making a complete circuit. Inside the ring road, which doubled as a parking lot, was the  whitewashed temple of the  Church of Green Dome.

Headwater was a one-church town. Services on Sunday as usual. Wednesdays were given over to the Last Rite.

TC333: It would have been unseemly to run  around playing while the body of Kim's father was  sent to his long  home along with three other Greendomites from around the country, so Kim and her friends sat in the Temple basement, very bored, while volunteers prepared dinner for the families of the dead.

Gabriel joined them after breaking away from a  group of Kuwapi boys smoking outside and pulled out a set of keys. "Benefits of being the preacher's  kid." He unlocked the  door to  a supply room.

TC334: Kim, Sophia, and Dory tagged along  with Gabriel because there was nothing else to do.

There was no electric  light in  the room,  only a  window with blinds and it was a gloomy January day outside. There was an old piano which was probably broken. Kim avoided the urge to play it. There was a street map of Headwater posted on a wall. There were the usual  church odds  and  ends. The kids found  unused hymnals, stacks of old temple bulletins, empty  mason jars, and dozens of stacked folding chairs.

TC335: Gabriel stopped moving and went, "Shhh! What's that?"

The children froze but the only thing they heard was organ music and the  choir  bleeding  through the  ceiling  from  the  main sanctuary upstairs. "Very funny," Sophia said, giving Gabriel a friendly shove.

One of the walls was unfinished. Gabriel moved aside a piece of plywood. The plywood had concealed another dark space beyond. It was so black inside it drank their vision like a sponge. Gabriel asked Dory, "Do we show them now, sis?"

TC336: "They had to find out sooner or later," said Dory with a shrug. "Might as well be now." So Gabriel led the way.

After ducking to enter the  hole that  had been covered  by the pine board Kim and Sophia  found they  could stand. Dory hit a switch and  a number  of lights  came on  in a  twisting passage roughly carved in solid rock. It was tall enough to walk upright but very  narrow. As they went  along  Gabriel  said,  "We're crossing under the road here, and after that we'll be inside the mountain."

TC337: They walked until he tunnel flared out into a cave with a pool of water that was the  very source of the  Squaw River. It poured out through a daylit hole. Gabriel stood on a ledge over the pool and said, "Here, exactly here, is where Adamu and Chava went to Kemen. Straight out of the Green Book."

Robyn was incredulous. "That's what you wanted to show us?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"In a museum in Havana are two skulls  of Christopher Columbus, one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."

TC338: Dory said, "Gabe, we have an unbeliever on our hands."

Gabriel rolled up his sleeves and approached Kim, flipping both hands over a few times to show they were  empty. He said, "Hold out your hand." She did. Gabriel clasped her hand and left there a stack of silver half-dollars. "Explain that, if you can."

Kimberly put the coins in her purse because money was money and if Gabriel wanted to  give her  ten bucks so  be it. She said, "Magic tricks, just like they're showing Momma right now."

TC339: Sophia chimed in, obviously sympathizing  with Kim. "Why can't people just be amazed at God for what he really did do?"

Dory threw up  her hands  in mock  despair at  her two  heathen friends and muttered something about White Wingers.

Gabriel decided it was time for extreme measures, so he stripped out of his clothes and waded  out into the pool. Dory took his cue and did the same, with no body modesty at all. They were all good friends and nobody else was there, but Kim couldn't believe it.

TC340: Kim said,  "Am  I  really seeing  this,  Sophia? Are  my friends actually skinny-dipping during my father's funeral?"

Dory was exasperated. "Would you shut up and look?"

The boy part of Gabriel was  doing what boy parts  typically do around girls, no surprise there. But he only had one ball. "The other one is inside  me, Kim.  It's a real  ovary. I  could get pregnant." He moved his  scrotum aside  to  display the  labia hidden behind it. And his breasts and nipples didn't look like they were for show.

TC341: "Gabriel is what we call  a jen," Dory said. "A nephil. I'm a nephil too, except I'm an ambi."

Kim and Sofie could see  the bits dangling below  Dory's labia. She had the  same  two  organs as  her  sibling  but they  were reversed in position. That seemed to make all  the difference. Dory thought of herself as female.

Both Kim and Sophia were stunned to silence.

Gabriel said, "It's an old Kemenese joke that if ambis like Dory put their mind to it they could fuck themselves."

No one laughed.

TC342: Gabriel  cleared  his  throat  and  said,  "Recall  your scripture. Genesis six  four. There were giants in  the earth in those days. When  the sons of God came in  unto the daughters of men they bore  children to them. The same became  the mighty men of old, men of renown."

Dory chimed in. "All we're saying we both have a copy of Mom's Z chromosome."

When Hunky found her voice she said, "You've got a dangler like your brother.  Why aren't you  running around with  those Kuwapi boys he smokes with?"

TC343: Dory said, "Now, right there, that's the best part about being one of the nephilim. It's  only you humans and elyonim who have to be one thing or the other. We get to choose! Dresses and makeup is how  I want to fit in and  Gabriel's stupid club where they camp  out on the plains  and whip each other  raw works for him. Certainly  cousin Remy  doesn't have any  complaints, right Gabe?" Dory winked at him.

"None of this should be new  to you and Sophia,"  said Gabriel. "It's all in the Green Book."

TC344: "I believe  all that  stuff in  the Green  Book and  the Bible,"  Kim answered,  annoyed at  the insinuation  she was  an apostate. "Kemen, miracles, the resurrection, everyone believes it happened, back then. But nobody believes it happens now."

Sophia nodded and  said,  "Everybody knows  that stuff  doesn't happen anymore, but nobody is willing to admit they know it."

"If you were just talking about the Bible you'd  have a point," Gabriel answered. "But the Green  Book is  like no  other holy text."

TC345: Kim and  Sophia fell  silent, unprepared  to call  their friends liars  while  hard  evidence  they  were  nephilim  was standing between  their  legs,  literally. But Dory  felt  her friends needed one final push. She jumped into the source of the Squaw River and  dove out  of view. Gabriel took her cue  and followed.

"I'll give them less  than one minute,"  Sophia said,  but when that minute passed she started to worry and at four minutes she and Kim were stripping their own clothes off to go after them.

TC346: The four of them rose  to the surface together. Kim and Sophia would never be the same again. They had seen the purple sky of Kemen and possibly, just possibly, Yeshua himself.

Gabriel directed their attention to a rack of linen towels that was kept fully stocked for any travelers between the worlds. It was, after all, the reason his father had given him the key.

After the kids were  dressed they scrambled  out of  the supply room and sat together in the temple basement speaking no words.

TC347: Just then the attendees began to filter in from upstairs. During the shared  meal after  the Final  Rite Kim  thought her mother seemed very different. Her grief was gone, but something else was too.

Clara said, "It's all true, Kim. Everything in the Green Book is really true!"

"I know," said Kim, though she had come to the  same place by a very different  route.There was  a feeling of  melancholy behind everything now. Leliel had justifiably warned of  this. Belief was no longer any part of it.

AKEDAH

TC348: Avram means "the father is exalted" which glorified Terah rather than his son. In the ritual sealing the  covenant with Bat-El Melchizedek changed  his  name to  Avraham, which  means "father of many nations".

When Avraham's own son  was fourteen  years of  age Melchizedek said, "Take now Yishak and  go to  the hill country.  There you shall make  of him a  burnt offering  upon one of  the mountains that I will show you."

At first Avraham searched the face of  Melchizedek, thinking it to be a bad joke.

TC349: Avraham was tempted  to refuse outright  as he  did once before in Harran, but  he remembered the  covenant. 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 Avraham 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 he was led by Melchizedek into the hills that overlooked the Salt Sea.

TC350: On the first night  Melchizedek told Avraham to  look at the  stars and  asked if  he could  count them. "So shall your descendants be," said he.

Avraham got the point. He already possessed many  animals and servants and  great riches. He did  not  place his  hopes  on obtaining a better second life. The only new thing Bat-El could give Avraham was the assurance that his name and  his blood and the memory of him as a faithful servant of the living God would be carried into the indefinite future.

TC351: They saw no game along the way, so when they drew near to the designated place and  Melchizedek pointed  out the  hill to them, Yishak asked, "Where is the animal for the offering?"

Melchizedek said nothing. Avraham could not bring himself to lie to his son. "God himself will provide the offering."

Yishak was excited to see what God was going to bring so he ran ahead up the hill with youthful energy.

Avraham said to Melchizedek,  "When we reach  the top  you will help me restrain my son."

TC352: When they caught up with  the boy on the  hilltop Yishak called out, "Father, there's nothing here!"

Avraham 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 understand what was happening until Avraham and Melchizedek had lashed him securely to a flat boulder that would serve as the altar.

TC353: After that Avraham didn't  need to  work up the  will to slay his  own son, he  was actually in a  hurry to do  it. Every instant the helpless  Yishak lay  in mortal  terror of  his own father tore at his heart. Avraham couldn't stand it. He raised his blade...

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 ran off to a safe distance and turned to face his father.

TC354: Avraham's face twisted as  he worked through a  storm of dark  emotions. He seemed to  arrive at  an answer. "A day of testing?"

Melchizedek nodded in the  affirmative. "This day will  not be forgotten while cold and heat, seed-time and harvest remain. For God Most  High knows you  will not  even withhold your  only son from him."

Avraham longed to embrace Yishak but  he saw how the  boy stood well away. Trust, once betrayed like this,  could never return. "Could there not have been another way?"

TC355: Melchizedek said, "It would be difficult  to explain the full background of the controversy. It is enough for you to know the enemy of  man has made certain claims and  God Most High has chosen you and your descendants to show them to be false."

Avraham lamented, "What I  dread most of  all is  answering the hard questions  of Sarai after Yishak  has spoken to her  of all this, which he doubtless will."

Just then a portal appeared on the hilltop. With the crack of a whip a ram rushed through.

TC356: With a smooth  stroke of  the Killing  Relic Melchizedek separated the head and body of the animal after it emerged from the bubble, that Avraham may not be proven false in what he had said to his son.

He said, "Farewell, Avraham of  Harran! One day  other servants may be sent as God Most High commands."

In the audience hall of Melchiyahu one lamp alone was burning to give light. Melchizedek had forgotten how day on one world could be night on the other, and he wondered how that could be.

TC357: Melchizedek went to the wing of the palace where Princess Lilith lived, as she was quite nocturnal. When he drew near to her chambers he saw servants going  out with wet linen and going in with dry  and he  wondered  if he  really wanted  to go  any further. The worst fears of  Melchizedek materialized  when he found Lilith to  be nude from the waist down  with each leg held high in the  air by  servants, debauched  even by  his sister's standards. But Hamon  was  also present  amid  the  flurry  of activity.

TC358: Lilith spied him approaching and  smiled broadly. "Deck, you've come! And just in time!"

Hamon said, "The head has breached. Push, Lil! Push!"

Melchizedek remembered little after that, only that  it was all very liquid. Afterwards he realized to his surprise  that he, a warrior and prince of the city, had fainted.

When he was revived the newborn was already skin-to-skin against its mother. She said, "Deck, is Leliel not beautiful?"

"I see there have been many changes this past year."

TC359: "Who more worthy to wed an ophan of Salem than a Seraph?" replied Lilith, affirming  what  Melchizedek  had long  guessed about Hamon, that he was greater  in glory than any  king. "And Deck, in your absence the city has withstood war!"

He said, "Beloved sister, you are the most valiant and hardy yan I know, but unless  I am still  unconscious and  dreaming, just moments before  you went through  one of the most  difficult and painful experiences possible in this  world and did not once cry out."

TC360: "I gave Lilith a  number of wedding gifts,"  Hamon said. "One of them is  that she  can set  aside any  pain, if  she so chooses."

"Yet pain is  the  not enemy  most people  think  it is,"  said Melchizedek. "A 'gift' such as that leads only to a short life."

"That is true, Your Royal Highness, but only if the gift stands alone."

"There are things it is well Shemhazai not discover until it is too late," Lilith explained as  she nursed Leliel. "Not the most refined torment could wrest them from me." TC361:

"Avraham proved true in the testing," Melchizedek revealed.

"That is so," said Hamon, "but he has little love for a god who demanded  the life  of his  son. Still,  I suppose  a man  might remain loyal to a god he  actively hates. Even now he and Yishak are offering the  animal I sent to them.  But come, Melchizedek, your task  is done. Let  your mind be  at ease and  rejoice with your sister. You have a niece! Tomorrow we shall see your father and speak of what has befallen Salem in your absence."

DEED

TC362: In the morning a nephil of the B'nei Elohim came calling on Judith at her hotel in Richland, Washington. Judith had seen hem before. It was Beleth, an ambi slightly  more feminine than Elin but just as tall. Beleth insisted people use the classic pronouns of the nephilim, on 'hem' rather than  'her' or 'him', 'che' rather than 'she' or 'he', and 'hez' rather than 'hers' or 'his'. Judith was delighted by  the surprise visit  and invited Beleth to step inside, but Beleth had a word of warning.

TC363: "They're  watching this  door,  Judith,  and now  you've gotten your first visitor so you should treat this room as wired for sound when you get back tonight."

"I'm shocked they haven't already done it."

Beleth shook hez head. "If you decide to  join us you  need to give Robyn this." It was a tube of mascara but Judith guessed it was something else entirely. "She'll know how to open it."

Judith put  the container  in  her  purse. Smiling, she  said, "Beleth! I haven't seen you since Be'er Sheva!"

TC364: That was soon after the Vogel extraction in 1951. Beleth said, "Those twenty-two years seemed to just fly right by. Then again, Hamon's second best trick  had something to do with that. You remember your first time, don't you, Judith?"

At Tel Aviv Mossad had taken delivery of Hartmann Vogel with all his supplementary documentation but there where  many questions Judith found impossible  to  answer. She flunked the  homework assignment Miriam had given  her. But David Ben-Gurion  to the rescue.

TC365: Such was  Judith's  growing fame  that the  intelligence service was severely constrained by the prime minister himself, who simply told Mossad to  back off. In his ancillary role as Defense Minister he brevetted Judith to the rank of Segen in the Israeli Defense Force, equivalent  to a junior  lieutenant. For the time being, as a  brevet officer,  she retained the  pay of Samal  (Sergeant)  from her  service  in  the reserves. In the clutches of  the IDF  officer  corps  she undertook  her  first physical.

TC366: In the main  Judith was in  excellent condition  but the doctors noted the ugly mass  of scar  tissue on her  back which limited her movement to a degree. They also noted the rough six digit tattoo on her forearm and knew how she got the scars.

Women fought alongside men  in the  War of  Independence. Since then religious factions  in the  government maneuvered  to keep women out of combat roles. Ben-Gurion arranged for Judith and dozens of  other  female  soldiers  to  be  exempt  from  these restrictions.

TC367: Soon after that Beleth checked Judith out on "loan" for a day-long excursion by jeep. They drove about fifty kilometers across the Negev desert to the  vicinity of Be'er Sheva  in the southeast.

Along the way, Beleth  made an effort  to answer  the seemingly endless questions that poured out of the young  woman, but many of them, Beleth knew, would be impossible to answer to Judith's complete satisfaction  until she  was brought more  closely into Hamon's project. And that might take years.

TC368: Judith wanted to know more about Hamon.

"He thinks of himself as a  teacher. Officially he is  the head of  our  organization,  which  equally officially  we  call  the B'nei Elohim  Historical Institute.  Unofficially it's  just the Academy."

"So he teaches history?"

"Lately, yes, that's true. Before that he taught science. In the very beginning Hamon taught philosophy with a focus on ethics."

Beleth did not  elaborate on  how long  ago "in  the beginning" truly was: Thirty-third century BCE.

TC369: "How did Hamon bring me here in the blink of an eye? How did Elin send me to Argentina, and from there to Tel Aviv?"

"Ah yes, Hamon's third-most impressive trick. OK! The Euclidian three-space we live in has a  structure that can be squeezed and stretched  if sufficient  energies are  involved, such  as those produced by, let  us say, a star. Shortcuts can  be punched into it. Getting to  that job in Argentina, that wasn't  Elin, it was Hamon again. But today we're just driving out to the site."

TC370: "The site? Where are you taking me?"

"There's a hill we call Tel Sheva just a little  to the east of Be'er Sheva.  It's the  original location of  the city,  the one mentioned in  the Tanakh. Tel  Aviv University wants  to uncover the whole  dig but for right  now we've got permission  from the government to cherry pick it."

"How did you find it?"

"You've seen a few B'nei Elohim in action by now. You know each one of  us has a talent.  Hamon can whisk you  around without an airplane, for example."

TC371: "And Elin can knock people out. Miriam can  make you see things, or not see things. What about you?"

"At the Academy they call  me the  Historian. Its like  being a prophet, but in reverse. I  can see things that already happened instead of what's going to happen.  There's a few Rabbis who say that's how  Moshe could  live in  the time  of Exodus  and write everything in the book of Genesis."

"Is that how he did it?"

"Absolutely not. For one thing,  there never was a  Moshe. Does that shock you?"

TC372: "That depends on how  you think  you know Moshe  did not exist," Judith said.

"Hilkiah delivered a parody of  the Abrahamic covenant  to King Josiah.  This pastiche  introduced  the character  of Moshe.  It eventually became the  book of Deuteronomy, but  when the scroll was first rehearsed  in the ears of the people  Hashem dealt out an array of  punishments that ended with the temple  on fire and Jerusalem  sacked.  The B'nei  Elohim  helped  set up  Hilkiah's brother Lael as high priest in another place."

TC373: "Right! Don't tell me then, Beleth!"

This outburst elicited only a  grin and silence from  Beleth as che drove the jeep south and east across the Negev desert.

On the radio "Sixty Minute Man" by the Dominoes was playing. Now that she was through talking, Judith was able to concentrate on the lyrics. The song was some dirty blues from  America, quite popular over there, apparently, but the more she listened to it the  more  Judith grew  astonished  it  wasn't banned  from  the airwaves in Israel.

TC374: There were about a  dozen men  working at the  site with picks and shovels,  clustered  in  groups of  two  or three  at various places on the broad hilltop. Judith asked about them.

"Palestinian Bedoins," answered  Beleth. "Hired help. I  can't really say  they're local,  because they move  around a  lot, as they have  always done. My spouse  Ithuriel must be down  in the first dig. I'd like for you to meet him."

He was three meters down a sturdy wooden  ladder, another giant like Hamon but younger.

TC375: Beleth  made  the  introduction. "Judith, this  is  my husband,  Professor   Ithuriel  Shalom   of  the   B'nei  Elohim Historical Institute."

He was too  tall to  stand  in the  small space  that had  been accessed, so he begged Judith's leave to remain  seated. It was about the size of a bedroom. Along the walls were wooden racks of great antiquity. Only the parched climate of the  Negev had kept them from rotting away  over their five thousand  years of existence. These racks held many small clay medallions.

TC376: "It is a  great pleasure to  finally meet  you, Judith," said Dr. Shalom. "My father has taken an interest in  you, and so, as a consequence, has every one of the B'nei Elohim."

Now that she thought about it, Ithuriel's face did remind Judith of Hamon. She noted his horns curving in the usual ring. "Beleth told me  you  each  have  a  special  talent.  What  is  yours, Professor?"

"I really like how Robyn phrased it," Beleth told her husband.

"Ah yes. She called me a sharp cookie. How American!"

TC377: Judith gestured at the racks arranged  around him. "What is all this?"

"All this is  a finding  so important  by tomorrow  morning the government will  have revoked our  license to dig  here. They'll send in  their own people. But  today we're sliding out  of here with the most important piece."

He very carefully  set a  leather satchel  between himself  and Judith. It was filled  with paperwork,  perhaps  notes of  the excavation, Judith guessed. On top  of that  was  one of  the medallions of fired clay.

TC378: "All of these little  tablets are official  records from long ago, Judith. Some are tax  records. Some are the decrees of chieftains who styled  themselves kings. This one  happens to be the title to a piece of land in Hebron that has a pair of caves, and more recently, a stone mausoleum."

"The cave of Machpelah?"

Ithuriel nodded his head.

"How can you be sure?"

"I can read the Ugaritic cuneiform. This one has a name: Avraham Haivri. Abraham from across the river. Abraham the Hebrew."

TC379: "So Moshe was never real, but father Abraham was?"

"In a nutshell," Beleth said.

Judith let that sink in. "I see why you think this dig  is so important. Arabs and  Jews both claim descent  from Abraham. And this tablet is Abraham's claim to a toehold in this land. At the very least it says he was really here."

"Exactly," said Ithuriel. "But right now we need this evidence to disappear for a few years.  That's where you come in. We want you to put it in the museum in at Yad Mordechai."

TC380: "There is no museum in Yad Mordechai."

"By the time you arrive one will exist."

"I don't understand. If you want this artifact to disappear how would taking it to my kibbutz accomplish that?"

"You will understand very  shortly," he said. He put rolls of undeveloped  film in  the satchel  and zipped  it all  up. "Your homework assignment, Judith, is to  write a detailed  report on this find, complete with photographs."

"I muffed my last assignment."

"I think you'll do better this time."

TC381: Judith climbed out of  the dig with the  leather satchel and found that the sun, to her great confusion,  had moved from directly overhead to  lower in  the  east, yet  the air  seemed warmer. All the Bedoin laborers were gone, yet  there were many more holes dug into the hill, and that was  even more puzzling, as she had spoken  to Ithuriel  for only  ten minutes  at most. Judith returned to the  dig and  called down  but she  heard no reply. The jeep was gone and  in its place was  a beautiful red sedan.

TC382: Something about the car didn't seem right to Judith. The lines seemed too masculine. She'd never seen the like. It didn't look like a smooth progression from the  current year's models. Near the tail lights the word "Bel Air" was embossed in a script that looked vaguely  Arabic. The keys were  in the  ignition. Judith opened the  boot  of  the car  and  secured the  leather satchel within. There was nothing more to do but to return home and see if Ithuriel was telling the truth about a museum.

TC383: On the road home Judith  heard a song called  "Roll Over Beethoven" by  some fellow  named Chuck  Berry. It sounded like someone used "Sixty Minute Man"  as a template, made  it faster and more aggressive,  and stumbled  onto  a whole  new kind  of music. At first she thought it  was a novelty song,  but it was followed by something titled  "Heartbreak Hotel" by  some other fellow and  thus Judith  arrived  in  1956  at the  tender  age of twenty-three  when  she  should have  gotten  there  at  age twenty-eight.

REGICIDE

TC384: The "sea" of Aramel is a  lake fed by melt  water from a barren and twisted land, a  low gravelly pass where the northern and southern sheets of ice  came together  as one. In the year following the return of Prince Melchizedek Adanite forces seized once more the land approaches to Salem. The city, built upon an island a league offshore, was completely isolated.

The penultimate stroke of the war came when King Melchiyahu was discussing this development  with Hamon  and the  lords of  the city.

TC385: The king was speaking in the center of his audience hall where twice his son had been taken by portal to Earth. The mouth of a bridge in reality appeared once more. The king never had a fighting chance. Malphas struck  from  behind,  removing  the sovereign's head with a single swift stroke of his  blade as he cried,  "Sentence pronounced  and  carried out!" The sphere of distorted  light snapped  out  of existence,  leaving the  usual crater. The king's body and his head rolled separately therein.

TC386: Melchizedek was first to  reach the bleeding  remains of his father  and was  overcome with grief. He called for aides. Lilith met Hamon with  pleading eyes but  there was  nothing he could do.

"I knew Shemhazai had  this weapon in  reserve," he  said, "but there is no defense. I have given much thought to a deterrent."

Instead of bewailing the  death of her  father Lilith  stood up straight and  said to  the assembled lords,  "The king  is dead! Hail Melchizedek, king of the city! Long may he rule!"

TC387: The noblelen  of Salem  moved  from their  seats in  the audience hall and  sank to  their knees  near the  crater where Melchizedek and three servants, with infinite care, arranged the body and head of the  dead king on a  bier with some  degree of dignity. Lilith and even Hamon joined them in genuflection.

With a word of command Melchiyahu was carried away. The new lord of the city rose to the acclaim of those  assembled before them who shouted, as though with one voice, "Hail Melchizedek King!"i

TC388: The new king  held out  a hand in  the direction  of his father's receding litter and inquired of Hamon, "Will this, too, be the manner of my passing?"

"Not immediately, Your Majesty. Shemhazai now expects to receive messengers from Salem suing for peace."

"Excellent!" said Lilith. "Then he will not anticipate another taste of war!"

Hamon shook his head. "No, Lil, your own lieutenant has told me the forces moving in the field  are five times greater than what came against Salem before."

TC389: "Fivefold, or a hundredfold, or half," said Melchizedek, "for long as I reign as king  of this city none  shall face the enemy in the field."

"Your Majesty," said Lilith, "we have ships enough to carry all the people of the city away."

"But where would they go, Lil? There’s a  hundred small coves scattered around  the Sea  of Aramel  where clans  of fisherfolk barely survive from what little they catch and what lesser still they trade. The vale of the Dashok is too rocky to grow crops."

TC390: "Even  so,  Your  Majesty,"  said  Hamon,  "Release  one seaworthy craft, at  least. I would send spies up  the Dashok to the ice bridge. Shemhazai maintains a fortress there by the same means he sent Malphas to murder  your father here. It blocks any movement  west. The  enemy has  me at  a disadvantage.  He knows precisely where  the ice cave  lies under  the surface and  I do not."

"If my brother and king is willing," said  Lilith, "Azarael and Jael would be perfect. They're hunters and they're ghosts."

TC391: "Your   spies  shall  have  their   barque,"  said  King Melchizedek, and "what provender they need. But what think you, sister mine? Shall I abdicate the throne?"

"Shemhazai could never stomach me as queen, dear brother, and a successor  more to  his  liking  would be  despised  by all  the dwellers of this city. Yet a siege would be worse."

He said, "Then, beloved sister, the  time has come for  you and your Fallen Angels to quit Salem or become unwarlike for all the days you live in this city."

TC392: Lilith replied, "My brother and  liege-lord, my fighting yen have sworn a solemn oath their hand shall ever cleave to the sword."

"Then where shall they go, Lil?"

"Sire," Hamon said, "With my  mother's aid I will  whisk Lilith and Leliel to my home  in Anshar. Shemhazai could hardly object. It solves  a number of  problems he  has, the biggest  one being Lilith  herself.  But King  Galizur  of  Rumbek boasts  he  will welcome anyone cast  off from what he terms  'the unlovely lands ruled by Rimmon.""

TC393: Melchizedek could feel events rapidly accelerating toward a conclusion he had no wish to  see, but no way  to alter, even with his power as king. With a sigh he said to Hamon, "Then so let it be."

"I can never adequately thank you for your service to me in the other world.  I have made  far greater  demands on you  than you ever did of me."

"There has been  a  spring and  a summer  in  this city,"  said Melchizedek. "It lasted far longer and tasted  far sweeter than anyone ever dared to dream."

TC394: "If winter must now come to Salem," said Lilith, "may the flowering we have known take root outside of the lands trampled by House Gerash."

Hamon said, "Your Majesty,  will you  not reconsider  my offer, that Lilith may not be parted from you forever?"

"It is very tempting," said Melchizedek,  "most especially just now. Yet  as time wore  on I would  become alien to  the living, like a stone smuggled into a nest of eggs."

The king saw how Lilith grew supremely unhappy at these words.

TC395: "Then Sire, think on the refined cruelty of  the Eyes of Shemhazai, and what  you will suffer should you  fall into their hands. Your sister accepted the Change and not even the pains of childbirth could daunt  her. At the very least you  could die at the moment of your own choosing."

Melchizedek said, "I fear no torment by the enemy. Every moment I remain  alive in  the hands  of Shemhazai  he risks  having me snatched away by  my sister, or so he would  fear. No, Hamon, my end will be quick."

TC396: Melchizedek saw Lilith's  tears were flowing  freely. He was moved to drop  the airs of  a king and  embrace her  as any brother would embrace  a sister  he always  loved. He said, "I regret the years I had to admire you only in my thoughts."

Lilith could find no words other than to merely sob, "Oh, Deck, this parting is bitter. Bitter!"

Melchizedek held her gently apart. "Hamon told me your Leliel is the first born of the B’nei Elohim. The children of the gods! How very fortunate you are!"

TC397: Like the shadow of  a cloud  passing over the  white sun Melchizedek saw how they were inflicting torment upon themselves as cruel  as  anything  devised by  Shemhazai  by  letting  the necessary parting linger too long.

At his command Melchizedek was arrayed in his finest raiment. He donned a jeweled cloak and his father's crown. Then he led his weeping subjects to the  lower levels of  the city,  and Lilith longed to follow, but Hamon gently stayed her, and taking Leliel they went another way.

TC398: A lone craft neared  the near  shore of the  Aramel Sea, thronged with the  enemy,  yet no  darts  flew. Rimmon himself awaited. The living avatar of Shemhazai expected Melchizedek to send forth an underling as messenger, but no: it was the king of the city himself! Message received. King Rimmon ordered weapons free. As Melchizedek foresaw he  died  quickly in  a storm  of arrows. By the end of the day the city was pacified by the cruel Eyes of Shemhazai and would never again know a ruling monarch.