TCC

Kim and Sofie were attentive to the tighter security arrangements Tolson mentioned, but the only real change seemed to be how their tormentors would look at a scrap of paper from their pocket before punching the buttons that would let them out. That meant their tormentors were changing codes daily.

Sofie almost despaired but Kim explained (by way of Dory to maintain secrecy) that the change did not make their task any harder at all. They just had to pick a range and try all the combos in it night after night until the daily shifting combination happened to fall into that range.

Next to the door leaving the clinic was a square keypad with the digits 0 through 9, and the letters A through F, and Kim knew from listening that the combo was only four keystrokes. As soon as she started trying a very vivid daydream of time appeared in her mind. To Kim, after the Change, the future was like a self-assembling house of cards. She could see the top, ten nights later, when doing the range from 7000 to 7FFF she punched 7BC6 and the door clicked open.

But Kim wanted out that very night, so she started trying the range from 1000 to 1FFF. The house of cards in time collapsed and assembled itself again. The answer was four days away. Kim tried higher ranges and got jackpots ranging from two days to two weeks. But when she got in the D's she saw the number that was their ticket home that very night: D1FC.

Still, it was November and they were wearing nothing but slippers and hospital gowns. That itself was part of Tolson’s security. Kim told Sofie to gather blankets and towels and whatever else she could find to create makeshift extra clothing to shield them from the cold. “This is going to frighten Agent Tolson to no end,” said Kim as they both bundled up. “This, and especially what we do after this.” She could see the events leading to their escape from the camp stacking in her mind.

Sofie said, "I'm fine with Tolson being scared shitless."

They stepped out into Wyoming on a cold November night. The girls could see the clinic was one of hundreds of long single-story sixplexes with tarpaper walls, each one surrounded by drainage ditches crossed by gangplanks. Some had their interiors lit. Sofie wanted to knock on a door begging for help but Kim shook her head. Instead Kim chose a greenhouse that was empty but locked. She quietly told her friend, “We have special talents now just like Gabriel and Dory do. I know you can break anything you touch, if you want to. So break that padlock.”

Sofie didn’t believe her, but the lock broke in her hands anyway. “How do you like them apples?” Sofie husked. “If I knew I could do that we’d a left that hellhole any time we wanted.”

Kim shook her head again. "It was an electric lock, so if you broke it, we’d still be in that hellhole."

“So how did you get us out of there?”

“I’ll explain when we get indoors,” Kim said.

Sofie was disappointed that the greenhouse was cold. There was a vegetable garden inside, but the glass only kept away the snow and wind. Kim told Sofie everything she knew about her new talent.

In just one half hour they were discovered by the fellow who maintained this greenhouse and he was quite angry at the intrusion.

Kim bowed deeply and said, "Hello, Mr. Kaneko, please forgive the intrusion. We were held in another part of the camp and we escaped, but as you can see we are not dressed for the cold so we came here by necessity."

Mr. Kaneko’s initial srath at finding Kim and Sofie hiding in his garden faded to pity when Kim tolm him they had been held prisoner in the clinic since June. Not even the first wartime internees arrived until August. Still, he had questions. "Who are you? And how did you know my name?"

"I am Kimberly Zinter," she said, "and this is my friend Sofie Krause. We're kids from a little town named Headwater in the next state over."

For his second question Kim chose to resort to a falsehood, since the truth was that she could see up the timeline to a place where she, having escaped the camp, would speak with Yeshua about rewarding the fellow who helped her escape, and in that future Yeshua supplied the information. But that would make no sense to Kaneko.

She said, "The building were we were held had records and we saw them. I know you are George Kaneko, and your parents are issei. They were born in Japan but immigrated here and became American citizens. I know that you are nisei, you were born here which makes you every bit an American as we are. I know you are in this camp with your wife and your three sansei daughters. And I know that you and your family, through hard work, made a good life on your Washington State strawberry farm.

"But after the internment was announced you were tricked into selling your land for pennies on the dollar. Now you and family are forced to crowd into a single-room in barracks and shit, shower and shave with other families and eat in a common room that serves the whole block. And all this happened out of the fear that descended on the country in the wake of Pearl Harbor."

"Home of the brave," Sofie added, with a sneer. "And Tolson bragged of making it all come to be."

"I'm very sorry," said Kaneko, "but you cannot stay in my greenhouse. When they find you they will punish me."

"I understand," said Kim. "But please, Mr. Kaneko, do your daughters have any clothing to spare?"

"They are too young to have anything that would fit you. But I will give you spare garments of my own, even shoes and jackets, and when you are captured, as you certainly will be, you can say you stole them from my greenhouse."

"You are very kind, Mr. Kaneko, but why are you so sure we will be captured?"

"There is a barbed-wire fence that began to go up in October and it is nearly complete, much to our bewilderment and dismay. We all thought perfect acquiescence to the internment would prove our loyalty to America. Armed guards patrol the gap that remains.

When they were outfitted against the cold Kim bowed to Mr. Kaneko again, and Sofie joined her. They were both deeply grateful and Kim told him she would move heaven and earth to reward him far beyond what his little help merited. Then the girls departed the greenhouse.

Kim knew the path in time that led to their escape was razor thin and complicated beyond belief, yet she reeled it off for Sofie. Then she said, "Now repeat it all back to me."

"You must be joking," replied Sofie, nearly choking with indignation. "I stopped listening when you started to go on about railroad stuff."

"Give it a shot," said Kim. "Breaking things isn't the only thing that's different about you."

"Okay," Sofie sighed, and to her surprise, she found she could do just what Kim asked. "The only gap in the fence is along the west side of the camp away from the train station. It is guarded by two towers with high-power searchlights while seven lesser-equipped towers guarded the rest. We're going to make for the fence along the train tracks and choose a section equidistant between two guard towers. We'll be spotted but none of the guards will shoot right away. Then I just touching a lamp post and this takes out the the light overhead as though I somehow reached up there and pulled the wires. After that, I merely touched a fence post to snap it off at the base. The fence dangles suspended by the two nearest posts, and that lets you and me roll right under it. Only then do the guards start firing, but none of them will score hits 'cause it's dark. We run for the tracks. The guards can't leave their posts so they call it in by phone. We find the manual turnout switch used to move trains onto the siding to unload new internees for the camp and I break the metal left/right sign with just a touch. With the reflective sign no longer indicating the position of the switch you throw a lever to divert traffic to the siding just before the next train arrives, and that's the ridiculous part, because it's such a lucky coincidence.

"I'm more inclined to think it says more about my about my new sense of timing than luck."

"The train veers onto the side track as expected, and the engineer applies the brakes with a will, causing an empty gondola car to stop right in front of us, just long enough to climb inside and get out of sight. Then the train goes into reverse. When it was was entirely on the main line the engineer manually movs the shunt to where it was supposed to be. The train takes off before anyone running the camp even knows it ever stopped."

"That's perfect, Sofie. Now it only remains to actually do what I told you we have to do."

--

374 At a beautiful cataract in the mountains east of Salem, the Ophan Lilith and a squad of her Fallen Angels refreshed themselves. Afterwards they resumed their usual mode of riding slowly on their horses while patrolling all of the land approaches to the city for intruders.

375 The waterfall completely blanked out the sound and vibration of onrushing hooves until it was nearly too late. Not even Lilith’s hypersensitive mare gave warning.

376 Undetected, Adanite horseyeng raced up behind Lilith, her chief lieutenant Hashmal Imriel, and the other yen, At the last instant Lilith’s sword was unlimbered only to crash against a mighty iron rod. There were sparks and Lilith was knocked clean off her horse.

377 Still stunned, Lilith witnessed another horselan decapitating Imriel with a single stroke and choked back her grief. Her horse possessed the intelligence to linger with Lilith rather than follow her equine instinct, which was to bolt.

378 Shaking her head clear, Lilith mounted up again. Poor Imriel was dead but four other Fallen Angels survived the assault and they rallied around har.

379 Lumbering after them at a full gallop, Lilith and her companions loosed many arrows and felled the one wielding the iron staff. Two other weaving horseyeng were slain blocking arrows fired at the one who killed Imriel. He had a swift horse and far too much of a head start.

380 He dove into the safety of a vast forest glade guarded by a large armed encampment. Contrary to her every wish Lilith reared back and brought her horse to a stop. The other Fallen Angels conformed to her movements as the soldier they had chased turned to face them.

381 Seeing at last the face of the yang who killed Imriel, the princess mouthed his name with all the bile she could summon: “Zadkiel!”

382 Yet every indication Lilith had gathered from the path of burning villages told her Zadkiel was yet twelve to fifteen leagues to the west. She guessed that Zadkiel must have dragged his army here by a forced march overnight. That led her to marvel how he knew to come to just this place.

383 “Samael,” Lilith muttered, answering her own unspoken question. As though in answer, the dragon Demonstroke soared over the trees. Lilith was shocked to see the first and now last dragon in Kemen had been brought to this fight, but he orbited far overhead and made no move to attack.

384 Michael, speaking within her mind, told her Demonstroke was brandished only as insurance against interference from his avatar, which could also fly and vomit sun fire.

385 Lilith signaled for the Fallen Angels to gather close around har. She said, “Zadkiel will pay for killing Imriel, life for life. You needn’t follow me.” She gestured to a pair of white horns on her head. “Michael says my death will not be my death, but he has made no such promise to you.”

386 But the Fallen Angels were of a single mind. One of them answered for all and said, “Lead us, Your Royal Highness. For Imriel!” So heedless of the danger Lilith turned her horse to face the enemy. She sped forward to attack Zadkiel directly, and not one yen held back.

387 Zadkiel ordered the canvas covering Michael’s cage to be removed, revealing hym just as Lilith entered the range of the enemy’s darts. She brought her horse to a halt once more.

388 Zadkiel said, “You can kill me from where you stand, but Michael would join me in death.”

389 Lilith stared at Zadkiel with narrowing eyes and rode a bit closer. Then moving in a well-practiced dance, Keter’s best pikeyeng, arranged in a ring around Michael’s cage, brought their forest of spikes to the horizontal, yet not toward Lilith, but inward, toward Michael.

390 “Don’t sink to this, Zadkiel,” she called out in disgust. “I expect as much from Samael but it is not worthy of an unpossessed Gerash noble- yang.”

391 But her words were mere bluster. Lilith was shocked how efficiently the use of Michael as a living shield curtailed her actions.

392 Zadkiel seemed to read her thoughts. “Michael has become a noose around your neck, and the closer you try get to hym the tighter that noose will become. How easy it is to make you dance with a simple threat to Michael’s life!”

393 Michael shouted, “Lilith! Forget about me!” The words appeared simultaneously in her mind.

394 Lilith’s eyes became moist as she shook her head with a sad smile. She replied to Michael, both vocally and internally, “Did you not know that is the only thing I could never do?”

395 But there was nothing more she could do that day on the field. Spurring her horse, she turned and led her Fallen Angels back to the city.

--

The freight run between Cody and Billings was not scheduled to make a stop in Powell but on this occasion the engineer stopped to phone in the broken light at the Heart Mountain internment camp. That gave the friends of Kim and Sofie a very brief window to save them.

The train was a half mile long and nobody knew exactly which car the girls had chosen to stow away on. The stowaways were unconscious from exposure but the last image Dory received from Kim was of rolling stock with an open top, about half the height of a box car. Jashen drove beside the motionless train for a quarter mile before reaching the first run of gondola cars. Everyone got out of the station wagon and began calling Sofie and Kim by name but no heads poked over the sides of the cars.

Gabriel used handrails to climb one of them. Che didn’t see the girls, only a railcar filled with inch-thick sheets of steel stacked to within a foot and a half of the top. Same with the next car back. But the car after that had two piles of rags huddled against the front wall that must have been Kim and Sofie.

Gabriel climbed back down and pointed at the correct gondola car. “They’re in that one!” che told Dory, sprinting toward it. Che hoped he was right. There was only the light of a waxing gibbous moon for hem to see.

Then disaster struck: the train began to move once again. Instantly Gabriel had the Golden Gift in his hand. He squeezed it until the hissing shaft, pitch black on near black in the night, reached its maximum extension of about ten feet. If he squeezed harder it would begin to retract as a shield or dome.

When the railcar containing the girls approached, Gabriel swiped the active effect through the coupling. This caused an inch-wide swath of steel to disappear. The half of the train with a locomotive continued to accelerate, while the rear half began to slow to a halt.

Jashen moved his vehicle in reverse to follow the part of the train that was left behind, while Gabriel and Dory followed on foot. Dory felt a great sense of relief. No matter what happened now, Kim and Sofie were not on a one-way trip into eternity by way of the Rockies.

She climbed to the top of the gondola car, saw it was indeed Kim and Sofie, and burst into tears from the emotion of seeing them again after so long. Gabriel let the Macro bite into the lip of the open gondola car. A heavy half-circle of steel dropped away. “You’re too close,” Dory warned hem. “You’ll slice their feet.”

The front half of the train was slowing to a stop because the engineer now realized something was wrong. Gabriel put another nick about two feet behind the first one and Dory told him that was better. So he made a cut about three feet wide and danced out of the way as the wall of the gondola car and tons of steel spilled to the ground. The chute che had made was as smooth as a mirror. Not a single atom of iron stuck up to impede the girls.

Jashen joined Gabriel, ready to catch the girls when they came down the slide. Dory dragged Kim to the cut first and let her go. Kim was wrapped in blankets and a man’s clothing. Dory waited for Jashen and Gabriel to pile Kim into the station wagon before dragging Sofie to the slide. She could see two flashlights dancing a thousand feet away, crewmen from the caboose investigating why the train snapped in two.

When Jashen and Gabriel were ready Dory pushed Sofie off the railcar into their waiting arms, then Dory slid down after her.

In the station wagon Gabriel saw that Kim was wearing some short fellow’s clothes and a flannel coat under a blanket. She looked for all the world like a homeless bum, but everything smelled clean. The vehicle stank worse than Kimberly did.

Gabriel dug through fabric to reach skin and found Kim was dangerously cold.

Dory said. “There was only a foot of steel between them and sixty miles an hour of November wind, at two in the AM, in Wyoming. Poor Kim. Poor Sofie.”

Even as she spoke Sofie stirred awake under Dory’s ministrations, but Gabriel still had Kim to revive. “Skin to skin,” Dory told him, “that’s the secret to it.” Gabriel didn’t need much convincing of that.

The way home doubled back southwest parallel to the tracks. As Jashen was driving past the Heart Mountain camp Kim stirred to life, as if sensitive to the mere proximity of her former prison. Luxuriating in the attention Gabriel lavished on her she purred, “I like this afterlife.”

-

396 Raphaela said, "Your Royal Highness, you have been gracious to instruct me in the way of Elyon, but many of the Fallen Angels have remarked that you a yan of very few words."

397 Lilith said, “The chatter of ordinary yenb flows from their nature, Raphaela, but the silence of a yen of war flows from her understanding. When you release a flood of words, there is a greater chance that you may inadvertently utter something that you did not intend to say, and this will reveal your foolishness to all."

398 Raphaela objected, "But if the wise speak like fools then they are fools.”

399 Lilith said, "A foolish yan may be considered wise if she simply closes her lips. Long ago before men and women were brought to heaven people walked the way of Elyon and they did what needed to be done with few words. Then they invented writing and recordkeeping and they recorded what they saw as history.

400 “Today, few still walk the path laid out by Elyon, so we are overrun by speechmakers and long-winded politicians with their solutions for this or that crisis, when all of their problems can be solved by letting things freely reach their natural balance."

401 Raphaela said, "But in that event, Your Royal Highess, the politicians would not get credit for saving the day, and people would begin to think such parasites were not needed at all."

402 And Lilith said, "You have hit very close to the mark, Raphaela."

403 Raphaela asked, "Can a yan of war still be loving?"

404 Lilith said, "We have the word 'loving' to identify someone who loves, and to distinguish them someone who hates, because in this dark age there are many who hate."

405 Raphaela asked, "Has hatred not always been with us?"

406 Lilith said, "Long ago everyone loved, so the word 'loving' did not yet exist. Love was as abundant as the air we breath, or like the water a fish lives and moves in. Only the absence of love demanded the invention of the word 'loving' to describe those who still held to my path."

407 Raphaela asked, "Could the same be said of the wise, or the honest, or the just?”

408 Lilith nodded in the affirmative. “As more and more people fell away from the way of Elyon, the names for more and more virtues began to appear, where before there had been only formless innocence. The yan of war sets her foot on the path to return to that."

409 Raphaela said, "Then it seems that to be a yen of war is to set yourself apart from all other yen, not to mention apart from all len and jen and men."

410 Lilith said, "This is true, Raphael, but not from a desire to be elite, but only because a yan of war clings to her inner nature while others flutter about chasing their illusions."

411 Raphaela asked, “Is it misguided to seek the truth?"

412 Lilith replied, "It is wasted effort to seek the truth, Raphaela. While others run around looking for external truths, the yan of war cultivates the way of Elyon, which brings her mind naturally into accordance with the way things are."

413 Raphaela said, “I think, Your Royal Highess, that frequently when the people running to and fro it is simply so they can continue their own livelihood."

414 Lilith replied, "People lead busy lives because they perceive their wants as needs, so their needs become endless. Being a yan of war means having a good sense of priorities. Her needs are relatively few, and her desires are almost nonexistent, so she appears calm and contemplative."

415 Raphaela said, "If the way of Elyon is about always simplifying things, should I not start by ignoring authority figures?"

416 Lilith answered, "That is a good beginning. Power attracts people who are more interested in expanding and clinging to that power rather than nourishing their mind in the way of Elyon."

417 Raphaela said, "Then, Your Royal Highness, what would you say if I also, in the name of simplifying my life, began ignoring you?"

418 Lilith said, "That is a good direction in which to continue, Raphael. Individual people, even one such as I, may not truly be in harmony with the way of Elyon despite their claims to the contrary. But now the way of Elyon has taken root in Heaven, so all the people, taken in aggregate, cannot help but be in harmony with that path."

419 Raphaela asked, "So if I take all the people as my teacher, I cannot go wrong?"

420 Lilith said "That is most assuredly true, Raphaela. Individual leaders or teachers mayhave ambitions, and so depart from the way of Elyon. But the common people lack ambition. Here in Salem and even in distant Rammon they have embraced the preaching of Michael and live in natural simplicity precisely in accordance with that path."

--

South and east of Cody lies the Big Horn Hot Springs, which are said to be the largest in the world. They form the heart of Wyoming's oldest state park, which is a sort of little brother to Yellowstone. There's even a herd of bison who stick around for the free eatins.

After Pearl Harbor driving just for the sake of taking a road trip was illegal, and worst than that it was considered unpatriotic. The purported health benefits of the mineral hot springs in Thermopolis were a viable loophole but gas rationing still took a bite on tourism.

So when a clergyman of the Church of Green Dome arrived in town with four young adults, an X ration sticker on his windshield, and more than nine hundred dollars in cash, it took very little time to find four rooms clustered around a small private pool at a toasty 104F.

Hunky and Dory sat close together playing footsie under the milky water. Robyn and Gabriel sat across from the girls and Jashen between them. Gabriel wondered aloud if stopping there was safe. Robyn nodded. 'Tolson probably knew we were gone but it was dark.

'By the time we were in Cody, Tolson was searching around the camp for two dead girls in hospital gowns and stolen blankets. I reckon about right now he's trying to make heads and tails of that damaged rail car. That we might be here hasn't entered his wildest imaginings.'

An air bubble the width of the pool surfaced, broke, and suddenly everyone was soaking in fizzy water. The head of a sixth person surfaced and everyone instinctively knew it was Michael, even Hunky and Robyn, who had never met hym before. They all stood up in the water.

Michael told them to sit back down, and requested that Dory and Sofie remain untangled until his audience was over. 'Lord, we've agreed to use Hunky for Sofie's name,' said Dory as she sank back into the water. 'And Kim is 'Robyn' now. They're both wanted women.'

'Yes you are,' agreed Michael. 'Robyn, did you tell your friends how long Tolson will be looking for you?' When she told them it would be for the next thirty years, and end only when he died, it brought a wail of despair from Hunky, and Michael turned hyz attention to her.

'Hello Hunky. Robyn already knows me because she can remember the future, but we've not met. Please tell us what you already know about me.'

She said, "I know you are the one named Michael in the Green Book. How I know that I can't explain. I suppose it's part of this change I signed up for when I let my finger be skewered up on the hill after Robyn went first. I know you're the best fit for what we think of when we think of God, and I know it's not a very good fit at all. I know your real body is the sun, and you share that body with Bat-El. And I know those things because now I realize the book is true after all.'

Michael shook hyz head with rue. 'I wanted to see what it be like if my holy book was about things that really did happen.'

Jashen came to Hunky's defense here. 'I think when people read the stories in the Bible of talking snakes and talking donkeys, then another story in another ancient book with talking animals rings true. I'm speaking of Aesop's story of the boy who cried wolf.'

Michael laughed because what Jashen said was true and hy had never thought of it that way. Of course Hunky and Robyn would think the Green Book was filled with poetry and parables and allegory after being told many passages of the Bible were written in a similar mode.

'Lord,' ventured Gabriel, 'may you not think it impertinent to ask, but when you appeared in the pool just now it made me think of when you took me and Dory to the top of Green Dome in a moment. Why could you not have gone to the camp yourself and brought our friends home?'

'You're Begotten, Gabriel. Your family helped you discover you are the Magician. But the Made are on their own. Without a crisis to overcome Hunky wouldn't be Sabotage, she would just think she was unlucky. Robyn wouldn't be the Seer, she would just think she was crazy. And now here you are, safely at point B after escaping from point A, bathing in milky water that smells like brimstone, but not to get clean I imagine.'

'Some say this water has health benefits, Lord, said Jashen. 'We just' didn't want to spend another night in the car. '

'What awaits at point Z, Lord?' asked Dory. 'Will you say why the b'nei elohim exist, and why we can do the things we do?'

'You already know the ancient controversy, Dory. I am blocked from communicating with any eloah on the other side of my parents, and so is Bat-El. But we can listen, and last year about when Pearl Harbor was attacked there was even bigger news. Have you ever listened to Ma Perkins?'

'Land o' Goshen, Lord, there ain't a hull lot of folks never heard Ma.'

'I see you have. And now so has the eloah named Gevurah.'

'Oh, that is wonderful news, Lord. That means you've won!'

'No, Dory, what it means is that for the eleventh time in history, the community of elohim has received signals from planet-dwellers. But Gevurah only has a direction to Earth, not the distance. That comes later. Soon other elohim will pick up broadcasts from Earth and realize you are not out of reach. Ein Sof will have found the Students at last! And they will wonder how I can be a stable yellow sun in their midst yet remain unquickened, and things will grow sticky for Keter. Meanwhile all the elohim listen with rapt attention to the first soap opera, sponsored by Oxydol, the whiter, whiter soap, and they fail to understand a single word. But I have pinned the broadcasts down to 1933, so I know who Gevurah must be. Humans know him as Sirius.'

Gabriel said, 'I wonder if the elohim will be coming to visit us, now that they know we're here.'

'They will send avatars, Gabriel, like remote-controlled rockets, but only as flybys. After it gets a certain distance from an eloah the link is too thin to pass any propellant. So to finally answer Dory's question, starting from right here at point B, you're going to help me catch one of those incoming avatars at point Z and bring it inside myself. And that will not be easy at all, because they will be moving at seven-tenths of light-speed. And none of this can be forced upon you because all of this, all of human history, in fact, is nothing more than the greatest love story never told: overcoming every artificial barrier Keter and Daat and Chesed can throw up to block the wedding of elohim and humanity.'

When che heard these words Gabriel swam out around Jashen to face Robyn, stood up tall to brace his courage, looked her in the eyes, and said, 'From the day we became lab partners in school I loved you. Every day you were gone and only Dory could reach you it tore me apart.

"Then Michael said we had one narrow chance to save your life and I couldn't sleep for a minute until I saw you again, and when I did you were frozen half to death on that stack of steel. It was a life changing moment, Robyn. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'

Robyn waded out to face Gabriel and took each of hez hands in her own. 'And I love you too, Gabriel. It's true. I loved you even after that time at Lake 13 and your lesson on nephilim biology. But we're Church of Green Dome and you know there's rules."

'Whoa,' said Hunky, clearing her throat and wading out a little bit too. 'I know the scripture says never put God to the test but here's a much smaller love story than human history, Lord, with much smaller artificial barriers. If you can't fix this I won't take your job.'

All eyes turned to Dory, who nodded her head. 'I'm with Hunky on this, Lord. Robyn becomes Mrs. Gabriel Shybear. That's point C.'

Michael said, 'Why not? I never set down mandatory cousin-marriage. That was Lange.'

'It will split your church in two, Lord,' warned Jashen.

'I know it will, Jashen, and the external reality will finally conform with the internal reality.'

Jashen tried to shine a good light on it. 'Once the nomadic people of the plains had to choose between removing to the reservations or starving. The Church was a third way.'

'We can still save something of the Church,' said Michael. 'We'll move the remnant to another place. But for now take these young people back to Headwater and announce the betrothal: Gabriel to Kimberly. That's the important thing. Do not use her new name Robyn.'

Jashen bowed his head to his grandfather and said, 'Yes, Lord.'

And the decision having been made, Robyn slipped into a daydream of the consequences. She croaked, 'Oh, poor Gabriel. Poor me!' 'Seeing all that, Robyn, will you still marry hem?' She nodded in the affirmative.

'But how will it happen, Lord? I'll be dead.'

Michael did a little hand wave. 'Dead? Tut tut. A temporary inconvenience. Remember how Yeshua was wiped off the face of the Earth and now he's good as new? Come this December and you will be wed to Gabriel. Yeshua will preside. The ceremony will take place in Nyduly Wood. It will literally be a match made in Heaven.'

--

421 On the eve of the first battle of Salem Princess Lilith joined her father Cherub Melchiyahu to tally the campfires of the Adanite forces arrayed against them. Lilith said, “Look at that, my father and liege-lord! Ten times ten thousand arrayed against us! Did you ever see such a host?"

422 Melchiyahu said, "A large force does not assure the enemy a victory, daughter. What are the stakes? They are fighting to restore Salem as a taxpaying province in the empire. But our people can barely made do as things stand now. Paying the ‘worship’ tribute to the Eyes of Samael would starve them. They are fighting to survive."

423 Lilith objected, "But that is the hashmal Zadkiel over there!"

424 Melchiyahu said, "And how did he become so famous, Lilith? By his reckless aggression. If I present my shock troops to his as bait they will rush out to engage them, thinking how this will advance their reputation."

425 Lilith said, "But behind him are the best fed and best trained soldiers in Kemen!"

426 Melchiyahu said, "But they aren't fighting for their wives or cities or farms in Adan, they are fighting to prop up a bankrupt culture and a fragile slave economy.

427 Lilith said, "Father, help me to understand how we, numbering in our thousands, can hope to prevail against our enemies numbering in tens of thousands?"

428 Melchiyahu said, "A light commando force wreaking havoc behind enemy lines will tie down a much greater force hunting for it. A small army that is still and rested with have the better of a large army that is worn out marching double-time to meet it."

429 Raphaela said, "But there must be a limit to how small a unit can be before it is ineffective no matter how intelligently it is employed."

430 Melchiyahu nodded in agreement. He said, "Too light, and we invite aggression. Too heavy, and our army becomes unwieldy. But like you, daughter, I have taken Michael's teachings to heart. A commander in harmony with the way of Elyon coordinates the small with the great, the strong with the weak, the eager with the reticent, balancing opposites to attain the middle path."

431 “I will unleash the extraordinary force. When they see the carnage wrought by your Fallen Angels, they will hesitate. And in that moment I will strike with the main force. Salem must prevail because the army is humble. Our soldiers and the officers who lead them do not think of self- aggrandizement of the aggrandizement of the state."

432 And Lilith said, "Excellent."

433 During the battle the King’s forces, which were a larger body than the Fallen Angels, took the role of the primary force. Lilith’s yen were the skirmishers, the saboteurs, and the assassins.

434 On a grander scale, it was King Melchiyahu and his ordinary force that gained the victory, but Zadkiel’s yeng remembered only the leather-clad yen who had somehow gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driving off horses and setting fire to wagons.

435 And Keter, watching through the eyes of the dragon Demonstroke flying high over the field, witnessed the defeat of Zadkiel. He discounted his numerical losses and ordered more yeng to march west from Adan. They moved toward Salem like buckets of water in a fire brigade.

436 Zadkiel came again against Salem with his dwindling army. The forces clashed in the ravine of Anixi and Melchiyahu was driven down the brook to Nolesh Wood. Then Lilith came with timely reinforcements to turn and drive the Adanite army to the very edge of the gorge of Armak.

437 The flags of truce were brought out, and with the King’s consent Lilith rode into the lines of the enemy to see if Zadkiel, with his back against an awesome precipice, had come to new wisdom. Hy had not even believed Samael concerning Lilith, but that was before this fight.

438 “I find I want you working for me and not against me,” Zadkiel told her as Michael watched from his cage only a few paces away. “You can defeat my army in this position, but I fear that Michael is close to the edge and something might happen to hym during the confusion.

439 "To keep Michael safe you will dissolve your band of yen dressed: as warriors, ride at the head of this army, and go where I command you in the East Lands and the West Lands and Salem, and every place where angels and men dare to hold the law of the god of Kemen in contempt.”

440 “Where is the honor here, Zadkiel? Where is the glory? Do you really want me to command your army while every decision is tainted by holding hostage the yang I love? Keter would do better to shun pretense and send Demonstroke down to finish the Fallen Angels.”

441 Zadkiel was delighted to hear Lilith declare that she loved the prisoner. “Then are the rumors true, Princess? Is it love, then? Michael must not fall outside of the control of my army but he need not be confined to a cage. Consider very carefully. You could go to hym this very night.”

442 “At a word from my father every Salemite would flock into his army, Hashmal Zadkiel; yea, even the yen, the infirm, the dirks and the dolls. The war would grow so bloody that the whole face of the land would be covered with the stinking dead, and no one would be left to bury them. This must not be.” Then she turned on her heels and quit the parley.

443 There had been no need to prod Lilith to do the right thing. Never was Michael more proud of har. “Sha knows, Elyon. The things you love are always used against you. Always! She knows!”

444 “Sha does know,” Michael replied, “but woe to those who turn love into a weapon and dare to use it against the ones who love. Beware, Zadkiel. Your doom lies before you. It takes no supernatural power of foresight to know the struggle for Salem will end badly for you.”

--

Hell's Half Acre is a roadside patch of badlands almost exactly in the center of Wyoming. It's much bigger than the name suggests, more like Hell's Half Square Mile, and the nearest sandstone and shale scarp that looks similar to it lies a whole state away in South Dakota.

A brown-skinned man emerged from the entrance of a cave in the eroded landscape dressed in dark blue-gray trousers and a knee-length jacket. He had a matching shirt and a silver leaf brooch in place of a tie and looked like a Shoshone with a good seamstress for a wife.

But the fellow was too short, his hair wasn't straight enough, and his facial features suggested the Mediterranean shores were his true home. He had never walked in that place before, but the strange eroded landscape reminded him of the desolate area around the Salt Sea.

It was one hundred fifty feet from the floor of the ravine to the gravel parking lot above and the man ascended with no sign of exertion. He once roamed on foot the whole land of his birth from Lake Kinneret as far as Mount Hermon and south to the hill country of Judaea.

He noted, without any surprise, the presence of a maroon 1941 Chrysler Town & Country woodie parked at the restaurant overlooking the geological oddity and knew he would find Robyn and her friends eating lunch inside, just as Robyn knew he was coming and gave fair warning.

Robyn, Gabriel, Jashen, Hunky and Dory were already standing at their table when he walked indoors, which the other guests might have thought was odd. None of them had ever seen him before but as B'nei Elohim they knew a seraph on sight and stopped everything, ready to serve.

'Please be seated,' he said, grabbing a chair from another table and carrying it over to theirs. 'I'll have what you're having, Jashen.' The Prophet raised a hand to flag down the waitress but the newcomer said, 'No, not allegory. I'll literally have what you're having.'

He took up a knife, cut Jashen's cheeseburger in two, and helped himself to one piece.

Hunky said, 'I'm pretty sure that burger is not kosher, Jesus. Aren't you Jewish?'

'Not Jesus, Hunky. Call me Yeshua. The Greeks thought Yeshua was a girly name and called me Iesous. The Romans spelled it I-E-S-US. Then later the English thought names beginning with vowels were too girly and called me Jesus. As for the food, my mother made just one arbitrary law about cutting a little flap of skin. Mixing meat and dairy was never on her mind.'

Dory and Gabriel stared at Yeshua in wonder, trying to reconcile his actual appearance with the popular depictions of him and there was just no way to do it. Robyn seemed preoccupied and looked off to the side. 'What is wrong, Robyn?' Yeshua asked her. 'What do you see?'

She said, 'Jashen announces the wedding but the White Wing of the Church will not accept it. Gabriel is attacked, but torture doesn't work on B'nei Elohim and Gabriel's friends retaliate, so Paul Bergin and Klaus Hansen kill me instead. They end up killing the Church.'

'How would you reply, Robyn, if I asked in truth that you do not avoid or resist those men, even to your death?'

After a long pause she said, 'I would decline such a request, Lord. I'm not in any particular hurry for my life come to an end just when I'm getting started.'

'And what did my cross teach you?'

'That death is not a blank wall, it's a door, and you went through it and came back to show us that even if we die we don't stay dead. But now I see how time really works and I know it was all a magic trick like Gabriel with his coins.'

Yeshua was genuinely fascinated by Robyn's unexpected reply. He asked, 'When you look at my life with your talent, what do you see?'

She said, 'I see a movie of a burning fuse, but the movie is running backwards. The fuse assembles itself from smoke and sparks.

It grows. One time that fuse looped back, crossed itself, and then there were two burning Yeshuas experiencing an advancing present, but one of them was wiped off the face of the Earth by the Romans. He hit that blank wall we call death. The one who lived, the lucky one, is you.'

'You're wrong about the blank wall, Robyn. The part of me that is Bat-El carried over the dying memories of the man who was put to death and merged them with my own.'

'Again, Lord, lucky you. But that didn't help the Yeshua who experienced death. You're a different one.'

'Robyn, nobody in the whole history of both worlds has ever 'experienced' death. Yes, we experience dying, each one of us, from the moment we are born, and there comes a moment in our lives that is not followed by another one, but that last moment never becomes a memory.'

'Lord, will you please say why I must not resist my own murder?'

'When you and Hunky escaped your prison last night what did you do to make the correct combination appear in your memory?'

'I had to begin punching them in.'

'Even so, your own end will spark a beginning. But Robyn, I will not order you to do what you are unwilling to do, so let us speak of something else. Your friends will not arrive in Headwater until late tonight. Will you come alone with me? I can bring you to a reunion with your mother in almost no time at all.'

Dory remembered the jaunt she had made with Michael and said, 'You should take him up on that offer, girl, it's the only way to travel.'

Gabriel heartily nodded in accord. So Robyn, who felt a little guilty telling Yeshua no on the first thing, told him yes on the other.

After hugging her farewells Robyn hiked with Yeshua down to the bottom of the ravine and followed him into the dark cave, where it grew light again, a little warmer, and they were kicking through fallen leaves piled up to their knees. But there was still plenty of green.

'Christmas trees!' exclaimed Robyn when she saw a stand of Douglas Fir. Many more of them covered the mountains she could see through bare branches of maple and alder. They were standing on a mountain as well, near the top.

Yeshua said, 'This is just a short side trip.'

'Where are we, Lord?'

'We are still in your country. Of the forty-eight states, this one is furthest to the north and to the west.'

'Washington.'

'I want you and your friends to put together a migration and move the Red Wing of the Church here.'

Robyn looked through the trees to the bottom land at the foot of the mountain laid down by repeated mud flows from a large nearby volcano and she remembered the JapaneseAmerican fellow at Heart Mountain who helped her and Hunky escape by giving them clothing and advice. She said, 'There's a Mr. Kaneko who lost his strawberry farm when they sent him to the camp. I want to buy a new one for him, Lord, right there. Do you see?'

'After the war is over,' Yeshua said.

He produced a large envelope somehow, perhaps by using the Gabriel trick. 'Yes. Mr. Kaneko will have his land when the relocation camp is no more. That is a very kind thought, Robyn. But this money is for your mother, to return to the home of her own parents in the east.' Robyn accepted the envelope gratefully.

--

445 Many years before Zadkiel brought war to Salem, the Cherub Gordiel hitched a wagon to a nearby tree with a knot so elaborate no one ould fairly begin to unravel it.

446 At that time an oracle said (or was told by Gordiel to say) whoever untied the wagon would rule all the angels in Kemen.

447 Zadkiel had heard the prophecy, of course. When the Army of Samael drew near the city he found the wagon and laid eyes on the Gordian Knot. For several days, while the army built camps in the surrounding fields, Zadkiel tried to undo the legendary knot, but to no avail.

448 This he did in great secret, for the Eyes of Samael would look askance at any attempt to usurp the power of the Lord by fulfilling the prophecy.

449 Then, accepting at last the wagon was going nowhere, Zadkiel had his yeng lash Michael’s cage to the old wagon on the hilltop.

450 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 army in Kemen.

451 Then Lilith drifted into camp fetching water for the yeng and taking abuse as though she were a male commoner pressed into service. She searched the area where Michael was being held captive.

452 The wooden cage that had been his home for far too long had been taken off the wagon tied to a tree by the Gordian Knot and relocated to the center of the camp, but the cage itself was guarded by only two yeng.

453 It was covered with a canvas to keep Michael from dying of exposure. It would not do, Zadkiel knew, to break the single thread keeping himself and his whole army alive.

454 Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted her to bring water to Michael. She appeared between the canvas and the cage with her ladle of rancid water.

455 For light she put on a green flexible band of intricate make, a gift from Michael. In the center it possessed a brilliant white light that allowed Lilith to move on the darkest nights. There was none like it in Kemen.

456 The canvas covering Michael’s cage was thick enough that no light escaped to betray the princess and whispers could not be heard outside. Michael was initially filled with joy when he saw the face of his disciple but this quickly changed. “Nice beard.”

457 Lilith said, “Hush! Take my headband.”

458 Michael said, “Do you want me to use it to escape?”

459 Lilith said “Please don’t do anything so stupid, Michael.” She offered the water she brought, such as it was, then said, “That headband is the only thing I have that says ‘Lilith was here’ without mistake.

460 "Zadkiel will come here later to gloat over you like the villains in plays always do. At that time I want you to let him see that you have my headband. That’s my message to him, and it is a very simple one: that I can come or go at will.”

461 “It will rattle hym good,” Michael admitted.

462 “It will rattle him to the point of pulling many len off the front lines to guard you.”

463 “It is a sound plan,” whispered Michael. “I never doubted that you had a scheme to get me away from Zadkiel.”

464 Their last moment together that evening was spent in a passionate kiss that was made necessarily short because they sensed guards were already getting suspicious.

465 At dawn Lilith and her father beheld the enemy, now very close to the city, from a small rise. Michael’s cage was visible in the center of the field, protected by a sizeable fraction of Zadkiel’s available yeng, perhaps up to a third. Lilith marveled how easy it had been.

466 “Do you see what I have done, father?” said she. “Things are neatly reversed. Michael has become Zadkiel’s greatest weakness, a precious jewel tying down a third of his force just as our attack begins.”

467 And Melchiyahu did not hesitate to let the attack begin. The armies slammed together. With the disparity in numbers the battle began to tip against Zadkiel.

468 Lilith fought her way to the top of the hill behind Zadkiel’s army where the wagon was tied up, standing all by itself and forgotten.

469 Zadkiel spotted her and nudged his horse up the hill to cut her off. A sudden fear gripped hym that Lilith could accomplish what no others had achieved, solve the Gordian Knot, and inherit the promise of the oracle to rule Kemen.

470 Alone on the summit they both dismounted and squared off. After a flurry of clashing swords just the tip of Zadkiel’s blade slashed Lilith’s bare midsection and he attained first blood.

471 She feigned shock at the injury and slowed her dance. Zadkiel saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was enough.

472 Seeing her slim opening, Lilith let fly a ferocious kick of one booted foot to his face and Zadkiel was laid out cold. Hyz sword separated from his unconscious hand.

473 Lilith tossed it far away, then returned to her helpless prey with a strong urge to make an end of hym. Before she met Michael, Lilith would have done precisely that, to avenge Imriel. No, far better to let the Hashmal live and explain the defeat to his god.

474 She suppressed her rage and glanced at the forgotten wagon fastened to a tree on the hilltop. Lilith ran to it instead. Sha attempted to untie the knot that her mad grandfather old King Gordiel had made to secure the wagon to a mighty tree, but like so many that came before her she made no headway.

475 She looked down and saw Adanite skirmishers ascending to come to the aid of their commander. Finally, with no time to lose, Lilith just hacked at the knot with her sword. The wagon was free, but she was certain Gordiel didn’t have that solution in mind when he created the knot.

476 The wagon began to roll downhill and Lilith jumped inside, hanging on for her very life. Lilith’s war cry caught the attention of the troops guarding Michael but the wagon gripped it. They gaped at the horror rushing down upon them faster than any horse could drive it. All of the yeng fled as her desperate gamble played out. She ducked inside and braced harself.

477 Michael saw what she was doing also, and flattened hymself against the side of the cage that he guessed would avoid a direct impact. The wagon collided with enough speed to shatter both the cage and the wagon to splinters.

478 Lilith was unceremoniously dumped on her rear but somehow they both survived the collision. Lilith was more bruised and beaten than she had ever been in her life but Michael was free.

479 nMelchiyahu with his army and many of the Fallen Angels pursued the defeated and scattered forces of Zadkiel’s army as they fled from the field of batytle.

480 But King Melchiyahu knew this defeated army was a fraction of the strength that Samael could bring to bear on hym and its modest size was itself a gesture of contempt on the part of Samael for the power of Salem to defend itself. Hy knew they would return with greater force.

481 Lilith said, "We have Zadkiel and his forces nearly surrounded. My father has left one escape route open, inviting him to retire. What is now a trickle out the back door will become a flood."

482 Raphaela rejoiced, and said, “Happy is the city that thinks of war in times of peace!”

483 Lilith answered, "And wise is the yan who immerses herself in military lore. But make no mistake, dear disciple. Happiness has nothing to do with it. Combat is the worst experience the dwellers of Kemen can ever experience.”

484 Raphaela said, "And Your Royal Highness, what of these vainglorious thrill-seekers we often hear about, who claim to love warfare?"

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

486 "Will you help your father pursue the enemy into the forest?" asked Michael while he made sure Lilith was not seriously hurt. He fairly brimmed with pride at Lilith's words to her lieutenant.

487 “No more adventures for a while,” she replied. “I’ve cracked a rib, for starters. You know this battle would have been unnecessary if you had not allowed yourself to be taken to Adan.”

488 Lilith touched the white horns upon her head head. “But now you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yan in Kemen who does not blanch at the consequence of death.”

489 “Tell me, Lil, why did you throw away everything you’ve worked for since you met me?”

490 Lilith was truly puzzled. :"I do not understand what you just said.”

491 Michael 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 Kemen. Fate! Now the unreformed Lilith must return.”

492 “Must sha? You say Keter was behind all this, but do you think he will have his way forever? What if the oracle really meant the spirit of the new Lilith will take over Kemen? The one 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.”

493 The last word was a sob. Michael ran his had over Lilith’s side, and somehow he took the underlying pain away. Lilith didn’t have to use her new talent to shunt the agony away and breathe deeply.

494 “It may take many centuries to play out, my beloved, both here and in the other world. But I believe you turned a corner here today. If every person in every age grows willing to do for each other what you did for me today, then love won. Once and for all, love won!”

--

During Temple services the Prophet of the Church of Green Dome, Jashen Shybear, declared he was setting aside the discipline of the Church, in a single case, so that Gabriel Shybear could marry Kimberly Zinter. With a loud outcry of righteous indignation the Apostle Klaus Hansen stood up and left the sanctuary, taking half the White Wing with him.

In short order Klaus Hansen declared himself the Prophet of the Reformed Green Dome Church. It went without saying that forbidding interracial marriage was one of the reforms, but there were many others. Listing them made up the bulk of Hansen’s sermon on the Sunday following just days after the disastrous split in the Church.

Hansen said the curse of God lay upon all those who played cards. All who engaged in dancing were in danger of God’s holy judgment. Those who even permitted themselves to listen to race music would face the very fires of hell. He told his flock to let not one single drop of Demon Rum pass their lips. To prove they were indwelt of the Holy Spirit, he encouraged the faithful to roll in the sawdust on the floor of the barn out on River Road, near the bridge, that was their new ‘temple’. That was just as well, as there were not enough benches for everyone to sit.

The beautiful white Temple looking down on them from the highest point in town seemed to mock them by simply continuing to exist. Many got up to leave during the service, but what was most alarming of all to the new prophet, the plate came back largely empty of cash.

The former Deacon Paul Bergin, now Apostle, went door-to-door to the homes of White Wingers passing out hastily-mimeographed tracts promised eternal damnation to backsliders who were tempted to stay or to return to the mother church.

Many of the white parishioners weighed the peril to their eternal souls if they remained in schism. Most found the barn situation to be intolerably pathetic. The pressure mounted on Hansen to approach the Prophet of the mother Church and negotiate a healing of the breach.

Paul and Klaus approached the Temple office door, but it was opened by Gabriel an instant before they could knock.

“How did you do that, son?” asked a startled Klaus.

“The Prophet foresaw that you were about to knock.”

Inside the office Paul and Klaus saw only Gabriel, Dory, and Kim, and it was soon apparent the men knew only one of them by name, which was Kim. Quelle surprise that the former Apostle and Deacon never troubled to get to know anyone in the Red Wing of the Church.

“Speaking of the Prophet, I came here to talk to him.”

“She’s right there,” said Dory, pointing at Robyn.

“I just see three kids who broke into the Temple office and are running loose. Where’s Jashen?”

“He’s in a better place,” Gabriel said.

“He’s dead?”

“No,” said Kim, “but he blamed himself for the schism and stepped down.”

“He was absolutely right to blame himself but if he left you in charge he must have been wholly demented in the end, because it says in the scriptures, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men. They must remain silent.'”

“You’re going to have to show me a little respect, Mister Hansen, as I am indeed the Prophet of the Church of Green Dome, notwithstanding whatever Paul wrote in the First Century about womenfolk.”

Kim reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a leather-bound green book. “I know you’ve seen this before, Mr. Hansen. It’s Mark Lange’s handwritten copy of the Book of Green Dome. He called it the Printer’s Manuscript. The first few sheets on the inside cover are an official Church document.”

She laid the book on her desk and flipped it open. The first entry on the inside cover said PASTOR MARK LANGE, PROPHET, SEP 1, 1866, followed by Lange’s signature, and this in turn was followed by a mark of an individual unknown, in Hebrew script. Kim said, “We believe the Lord Yeshua himself made this initial.”

This entry was followed by the First Decree, which read, THE PROPHET OF THE CMURCH SHALL CHOOSE, FROM THE WING OF THE CHURCH OF WHICH HE IS NOT A PART, ONE WHO SHALL HOLD THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE. It was dated SEP. 1, 1866, signed and initialed by Prophet Lange.

This was followed by the Second Decree, which read, IN THE EVENT OF THE DEATH OR RESIGNATION OF THE PROPHET, THE APOSTLE SHALL VACATE THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE AND ATTAIN TO THE OFFICE OF PROPHET, dated and certified Sep. 1, 1866.

The next entry, in the same handwriting, read, CHIEF WANICA, APOSTLE, SEP. 1, 1866, followed by a ragged ‘W’ and again by Lange’s initials.

Kim said, ‘We hold the first day of September to be the day of the founding of the Church of Green Dome, seventy-six years ago.’

The next entry in the Printer’s Manuscript read, again in the same handwriting, APOSTLE WANICA, DECEASED, NATURAL CAUSES, FEB. 27, 1906, followed by Lange’s initials.

The entry after that was JASHEN SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, FEB. 28, 1906. This was certified by the signature of Jashen and by Lange’s initials.

The next entry was written in a different hand. It said, PROPHET MARK LANGE, DECEASED, SINKING OF REINA RE-GENTA, MAR. 6, 1917, and this was initialed by Jashen and dated March 7, which reflected the delay in receiving the news. A diagonal line was drawn through the remaining blank space to the bottom of the inside cover and this, too, was initialed by Jashen.

On the facing page, the first line read, APOSTLE JASHEN SHYBEAR, PROPHET, MAR. 7, 1917 and this was signed and initialed by Jashen. The next line read, KLAUS HANSEN, APOSTLE, OCT 9, 1931 and this was signed by Hanson and initialed by Jashen.

Kim rotated the book to show Hanson the entry. She said, “Until I read this I wasn’t even aware the Church had gone nearly fifteen years without an Apostle. I suppose Jashen found the choice to be such a difficult one he was willing to risk breaking the clear order of succession with his own death.”

Klaus said, “At the time you were too young to know or care about Church politics. The White Wing threatened to walk over his failure to appoint an Apostle, so we forced Jashen’s hand. And we made him create the office of Deacon to prevent it from happening again.”

“I see. That explains the next line.” Jashen wrote the text of the Third Decree, dated the same day as the appointment of Hansen. It stated, THE PROPHET SHALL APPOINT, FROM ALTERNATING WINGS OF THE CHURCH, A DEACON TO SERVE THE SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE WHOLE CHURCH. IN THE EVENT OF THE DEATH OR RES- IGNATION OF THE APOSTLE, THE DEACON SHALL ATTAIN TO THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE. And Jashen had signed and initialed this.

The next line read PAUL BERGIN, DEACON, Oct. 9, 1931. This was signed by Paul, and initialed by Jashen.

Kim asked, “Does everything appear to be in order, gentlemen?” Paul nodded agreement, and Klaus said it appeared to be so.

Kim then indicated the next line, which none of the men had ever seen. ANY OFFICE OF THE CHURCH SHALL NOT BE TERMINATED EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF THE DEATH OR RESIGNATION OF THE OFFICEHOLDER. Signed by Jashen and dated January 10, 1943.

Kim said, “Jashen told us he never had to think about it before, but that the Fourth Decree became necessary following the events of Wednesday the 5th of January, when you went out from us. But let us go on.”

The next line read APOSTLE KLAUS HANSEN, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943, signed by Jashen Hansen objected to this. “I never resigned!”

“I was there in that barn you call your temple,’ said Kim. “I’m White Wing, remember? You introduced yourself as the Prophet of the Reformed Church of Green Dome. When I reported that to the actual Prophet he took that to be your official resignation. How did he put it, Dory?”

Dory replied, “Father said, ‘No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.’ In fine, if you’re an officer in the Reformed Green Dome Church you can’t be an officer in the mother Green Dome Church.”

Kim nodded, and said, “That led to the next line.”

It read KIMBERLY SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, JAN. 10, 1943. Kim had signed it, and Jashen had initialed after. “The upshot, Mr. Hansen, is that in the eyes of Prophet Jashen Shybear you quit, and he chose me to replace you.”

Kim proceeded to the next line, which read DEACON PAUL BERGIN, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943. This was also signed by Jashen.

Kim asked, rhetorically, “Do we need to go over the same argument for the resignation of the Deacon as it was for the Apostle? No? Then let us go on.”

The next line read, GABRIEL SHYBEAR, DEACON, JAN. 10, 1943, signed by Gabriel and initialed by Jashen.

Kim said, “All perfectly legal, of course. Jashen’s decree said the Deacon shall be of alternating race. As you can see, that Sunday was quite the busy day, but now we’re in the homestretch.’ And she advanced to the next item written on the page.

It read PROPHET JASHEN SHYBEAR, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943 and it carried his signature. That seemed to grab the attention of Bergin and Hansen.

Kim said, “Now you can see how I closed out his rather eventful page.”

Kim flipped the page over and showed everyone the first entry. APOSTLE KIMBERLY SHYBEAR, PROPHET, JAN. 10, 1943. And this was signed and initialed by Kim, exercising her apostolic authority under the Second Decree established by Prophet Jashen.

Underneath that was the final entry in the manuscript, which read DORIEL SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, JAN. 10, 1943. This was signed by Kim and initialed by Gabriel.

She said, ‘And all this to show we are not just three kids playing in the Temple office, but actual officers of the Church. So now that I have established my credentials as the Prophet of the Church, what have you and Mr. Bergin come to say?”

Klaus said, “We pray for the reunion of the Church. Were the Golden Gift to alternate in possession between members of the Red and White Wings, even as the office of Deacon, presently does, that would go a long way towards sealing the breach.”

Kim said, “That is easily enough done.” She took up a the pen to write in the leaves of the Green Book, THE SACRED RELIC SHALL REMAIN IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DEACON OF THE CHURCH, WHO SHALL BE MINISTER OF THE LAST RITE. And she dated it January 18, 1943.

“Good,” said Hansen. “But here is our second, and most important demand: God’s sacred law of cousin marriage should be enshrined as the Fifth Decree.”

“Again, “said Kim with a gentle smile, “that is easily done.” She inked the following into the manuscript: MARRIAGE IN THE CHURCH OF GREEN DOME SHALL BE SOLELY BETWEEN PERSONS WITH THE SAME GRANDPARENTS OR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS, ON PAIN OF EXCOMMUNICATION. She dated it January 18, 1943 and signed it.

Hansen said, “Good. When do you announce the end of your engagement to Gabriel?”

“Never,” Kim replied. “The decrees of the Church don’t work ex post facto.”

“The decree governs marriage. You haven’t married him yet.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong.” She showed him her wedding ring, and Gabriel flashed hez own. She didn’t mention they had been wed in Heaven, and they’d been married for a year already, because it would just confuse him. “Yeshua himself said if a woman puts aside her husband to marry another she commits adultery against him. That’s one of the Lord’s nonnegotiables. I wonder why you look so surprised, Mr. Hansen. You must not have been paying attention when I signed my entries in the Green Book as Kimberly Shybear rather than Kimberly Zinter.”

Hansen dealt with this news in his usual way, by storming noisily out, followed by Bergin.

--

495 The fold-door left Ophan Melchizedek in the very place where he had been taken, the audience hall of the King, but only one lamp was burning to give light.

496 Melchizedek had forgotten when it was day on one world it could be night on the other, and he wondered how that could be.

497 Knowing that his father Melchiyahu slept, he went the wing of the palace where his sister Lilith lived, as he remembered her to be rather nocturnal.

498 When he drew near to her chambers he saw servants going out with wet linen and going in with dry linen. Hy wondered if he really wanted to see this.

499 The worst fears of Melchizedek materialized when he came into the presence of Lilith and found her 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 Michael was also present amid a flurry of activity.

500 Lilith spied hym approaching and smiled broadly. “Deck, you’ve come! And just in time!”

501 Michael said to har, “The head has breached. Push, Lil! Push!”

502 Melchizedek saw little after that. He only remembered that it was all very liquid. Afterwards he realized to his surprise that he, a warrior of Salem, had fainted.

503 After Lilith’s servants revived Melchizedek he guessed he must have been unconscious for some time. The newborn was already skin-to-skin against its mother. She said, “Deck, is Leliel not beautiful?”

504 “I see there have been many changes here these three years I’ve been away.”

505 “Who more worthy to wed an Ophan of Salem than a Seraph?” replied Lilith, affirming what Melchizedek had guessed about Michael, that he was the living avatar of an eloah, greater in glory than any king. “And Deck, in your absence the city has withstood a mighty attack.”

506 Hy 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 you did not once cry out.”

507 “I cannot stand to watch my wife suffer in the smallest way,” Michael explained, “so when she came to me in Adan I gave her a gift. She can stand apart from any pain, if she so chooses.”

508 “And I most certainly did choose, tonight,” Lilith said, as a nipple slipped into the mouth of her tiny Leliel. “There are things Michael has told me that it is well Samael or Beliel not discover until it is too late for them. Not the most refined torment could wrest them from me now.”

509 Melchizedek caught the eye of Michael and told hym, “Abraham proved true in the testing.”

510 “That is so,” said Michael, ‘but he has little love for a god who demanded the life of his son. Still, it is not his love I crave. I suppose a man might remain loyal to a god he actively hates. Even now he and his son are offering the animal we sent to them.

510 "But come, Melchizedek, 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.”

--

Klaus Hansen and Paul Bergin sulked for two days, then returned to the Temple, but not, as it turned out, with their tail between their legs.

“I agreed to see you fellows again,” Kim said when Hansen and Bergin came to the Temple once more, “but if you act like a couple of high school students and storm out again when you don’t get your own way, it will be the last time we ever meet.” And Kim was perfectly able to follow through on that threat. Seeing the future, she could simply avoid going anywhere they went.

“It is you, rather, who have one slim chance to reunite the Church,” Hansen said with his trademark insufferable arrogance. “Paul and I must get our old jobs back, or the reunion will never come to be. That point is my nonnegotiable.”

Kim sighed and turned to her husband. “Will you, Gabriel, resign the office of Deacon?”

“I will not.”

Hansen shrugged, said, “You can’t push a rope” and he prepared once more to leave the office with Bergin, muttering a string of curses that completely obscured what Dory quietly said.

Kim asked Dory to repeat harself.

“I said, I will resign as Apostle of the Church.”

Kim opened the Printer’s Manuscript of the Green Book once more and penned the following entry: APOSTLE DORIEL SHYBEAR, RESIGNED, JAN. 20, 1943. Dory signed it, and Kim entered her initials.

“It’s done,” Kim said. “The office of Apostle is vacant. Will you, Klaus Hansen, take har place, or is Paul not getting Deacon still a non-negotiable sticking point?”

Klaus turned to Paul and said, “A temporary setback, Paul, nothing more. It will be remedied soon enough.” Paul nodded. Then Klaus faced Kim once more. “Very well, Mrs. Shybear, make the appropriate entry.”

She wrote KLAUS HANSEN, APOSTLE, JAN. 20, 1943 and turned the book for his inspection and signature. When he was done, Kim applied her initials.

Looking at all the recently entries she said, “I just had a sudden image of someone in 2043 reading this page and wondering what it must have been like, this whole sudden flurry and tangle.”

Hansen said, “The Reformed Church of Green Dome is gathering this morning to meet down at our own temple. Will you meet with them, Prophet Shybear, and affirm that our schism has reached an end?”

“I will.”

“And I would have them meet the new Deacon. One of our parishoners passed away. I would have the Deacon perform the Last Rites.”

Dory was incredulous. “The Last Rites in that barn?”

“It would do much to bring healing between the Red and White Wings of the Church,” Bergin put in.

“I refuse to go,” Doriel said.

“Can it not wait a week until Gabriel can perform the Last Rites properly in the actual Temple?” asked Kim.

“It has already been two weeks,” replied Hansen, “and the corpse is beginning to grow. . . unpresentable.”

Kim nodded her head. “We should do it, Gabe.”

“I have to retrieve the Golden Gift,” Gabriel said, “and I would not have Paul know where I keep it, as he is no longer an officer of the Church.”

Paul said, “This is not a problem. I can drive the Prophet to our temple, and Apostle Hansen can bring you along in his own truck to fetch the Relic and meet us there.”

To this Kim and Gabriel agreed, and they shared a farewell kiss before they parted, knowing that it was indeed farewell.

As Hansen drove Gabriel off the mountain he said, “The sight of you kissing that girl was disgusting. You’re not only not cousins, you’re not even the same species!”

“Sir,” replied Gabriel, “the Bible and the Book of Green Dome acknowledge only ethnicities. Wwe read only of peoples and kindreds and tongues, not Whites and Blacks and Red Men. Races are artificial things. Take the aborigines in Australia? They have Caucasian and Mongoloid genes, but they are as dark as Negroids. Even Lord Yeshua is a lovely coffee-with-cream brown.”

Hansen grew angry and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. “Get out. I can’t stand to be anywhere near a blasphemer, let alone one that entices our women to become race-traitors.”

“I still need to get the Golden Gift,” Gabriel objected. “What about the Last Rites?”

“Fuck the Last Rites. Get out.” Gabriel did has he was commanded, and Klaus Hansen peeled out in the snow, leaving Gabriel stranded on the side of the road halfway down the mountain. Che decided to hoof it back up to the Temple where Dory was waiting.

A short distance northwest of Green Dome was a place where the borders of three states came together in a little fenced-off lot. When Hansen arrived he saw that only Paul Bergin’s truck was parked there, and only Bergin could be seen standing in the little corral. A bloody lump of dead and naked womanflesh lay at his feet. Paul stood there staring at Kim’s body, not quite believing that he actually did it. He kept repeating to himself, “I’m going to hell!”

“Shut up, Paul,” Hansen told him when he drew near. “You’d only go to hell if you didn’t do it. Is that the knife?”

Paul nodded, the murder weapon nearly forgotten, but still grasped in his gloved hand.

“Throw it right now,” Hansen ordered. “Anywhere, but throw it as far as you can.”

Paul hurled the blade on the snowy wastelands lying to the west, somewhere in Wyoming. The blade flashed once in the morning sunlight and disappeared from view.

“Now help me lift her on this.”

There was a short post and a little sign about chest high that marked the exact place where the three states came together. The sign was canted at a forty-five degree angle. They draped Kim’s body across the sign, letting her head and arms bend backwards and her legs droop down.

After that, Hansen circled the area a few times to make sure Paul hadn’t dropped anything. Good. Even the spot with bloody snow was clear.

“Walk with me to my truck.” Hansen dropped the tailgate. In the bed of the truck were two sets of coats, clothing and boots laid out beside a cardboard box. Hansen took off the boots he was wearing and threw them in the box, along with his blood-stained coat, shirt and trousers. In the cold of January he quickly put on new outer garments, then sat on the tailgate to put on new boots.

“Throw your gloves in the box, Paul. Then do exactly what you just saw me do.”

“How are you going to get rid of the box?”

“Trust me, I’ll have it done in such a way that nothing, absolutely nothing will remain to tie this back to us, as long as you don’t forget to dispose of the set that knife came from when you get back home. Cheer up, Paul, we just saved the Church, you and I. Shy Bear couldn’t see it, but if that girl had children it would have meant the end of both the White Wing and the Red Wing. There wouldn’t be anymore wings, just an unholy hodge-podge growing like a cancer until it ate everything.”

--

511 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.

512 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.

513 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 Heaven itself. All these riches he dangled before the eyes of Bethuel, which prompted him to say, “Rebekah, will you go with this man?”

514 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.

515 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.

516 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.

517 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.

518 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 man she thought him to be.

519 Rebekah was very intelligent and it stood to reason that if the 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.”

520 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.

521 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.

522 So Melchizedek bid farewell to Abraham. He passed out of all knowledge of those who dwell on Earth, and he came there not again. The task laid upon him by his father to set aside a holy people for Elyon had been fulfilled.