She is not dead. Her mouth lets a slight warm bloom against his cheek as he cradles her head. Her eyes are far away.
'It is I, Papias,' he says. She does not move. He has not held a woman so, and the living weight of her is shocking to him — not the burden in his arms, for she is light, but the living substance of her. Her hair falls on his forearm. Her face is tilted back, and he touches it to bring her eyes towards him, but they are unseeing. Is that a blemish of contagion on her cheek?
The Lord is my Saviour.
Kneeling, Papias brings her head upright on the support of his arm. She is weak, she is collapsed from exhaustion and grieving, he decides. But within him he cannot escape the memory of her telling that she was with demons. He presses the thought away, shoving it deep. But it merely coils and snakes back and slithers now across his chest.
In an instant he sees it rise, actual, large, and loathsome into the dim air of the small room. It flicks back its head, makes hiss, and stretches with deep luxuriance, released from the tight confines of denial. The demon snake is a hundred times a snake. It twists about, rises to the rough mud of the roof, towers above the man and woman, and lets jab at nothing its forked tongue. Papias stares at it and holds Marina, as though aboard a rudderless boat that enters the mouth of a storm.
The Lord is my Saviour.
The demon laughs. Its coils continue to rise, coming from beneath, curling. Its green-gold-patterned snakeskin sliding past Papias and crowding the room. Now it lies along the lower wall, now a second length upon itself, and a third. The demon is unending; it fills the space like sin and thickens the air with a sweet poison. Papias raises his hand and cries out in fear.
The demon laughs. 'How thin is your faith,' it says. 'Look at you!'
Sharply it flicks forward its great head, lets fly its tongue so the thin yellow fork of it lashes like lightning, snaps, quivers not a finger's breadth from Papias's face. He screams, closes his eyes, thrashes at it wildly with one hand, touching nothing. With his other arm he clings to Marina.
The demon retires a small distance. 'You cannot drive me off,' it says, and laughs again as from behind Papias its tail comes and crosses his belly and enwraps him and the woman both. Papias heaves at it, but it is too great a weight.
'Go!' he cries out. 'Go. Be gone!'
But the demon does not. 'Dear friend Papias, where would I go?' it asks.
'My name. How do you know my. .?'
'I know all you know.'
'Spare her,' Papias says. 'Spare her.' He is surprised by his own words.
'If I give her to you, what will you give to me?'
Papias looks at the woman Marina, who lies across his arm. He does not remember speaking again. But at once the coils unwrap from about their waist. From above the demon snake descends in silence and crossing coolly backwards across the disciple's chest, with hiss and flicker, diminishes into nothing.
From a joint gap in the planking of the wall, Auster watches. He sees the young disciple hold the figure of a woman in his arms. So this is why Matthias wanted him followed. This is why he had to go up that treacherous cliff after him. Palms flat on the wall, face pressed sideways, he one-eyes the gap. He watches Papias hold the woman close to him. The youth studies her face, moves hair from her mouth, then he lays her down and rises and goes from view. He returns with water but no scoop. He hand-cups it to her mouth, touches water against her lips. And she coughs at last and sputters some and stirs. Her eyes come to, and she partly sits and is in a wild manner beautiful as she turns to look at him who is holding her.
'You?' she says.
11
The day being with little wind, the sea is flat and Matthias decides on a boat. A boat is fitting. He sends word by Cadmus: he has had a revelation and wishes to speak of it. Matthias tells him which disciples to call, which to pass by. So to the shore comes a quiet gathering of twelve. Matthias is pleased; numbers are signs, too. In the shallow water a boat waits.
'Come, follow,' he says and steps ahead of them into the low lapping waves. The under-stones give slightly; his brown robe darkens. He does not look behind him to see if they are following.
He walks erect into the sea. Command is in your bearing, and in your mystery, he has discovered, and proceeds in perfect faith. He is not wrong. The twelve, after a puzzled pause of only moments, step down the stony incline into anklets of surf. Matthias is on board the fishing boat and only then turns to see his flock. He goes toward the prow and stands. He wears the look of revelation upon him, or so he considers. The disciples he has chosen are the younger of those on the island. Their youth gives them a hunger for action, and Matthias knows they are restless in this useless banishment. The hold of the Apostle upon them is weakening every day. How long will they continue to believe? How long before worms of doubt eat them hollow? Will they live into old age on Patmos, confined by the Romans like mad dogs? Matthias has run a speech in his mind, an exhortation, a patina of genuine concern to hide the hooks of intent, but all the time feeding doubt, dropping worms to fish. His skills at rhetoric are considerable; he could argue them into discipleship, but in the end has decided on a different lure.
The boat sails with gentle sway. The island retreats and shows itself for what it is, a barren place of grey rock and scrub. The twelve sit ranked on either side, saying nothing. The water deepens below them, a black-blind murk. Matthias instructs Cadmus to lower the dun-coloured sail, and the boat slows and lingers in slap-water sounds, its mast an inverted cross.
Matthias plants his feet and holds open his arms. The time is now; he will wait no longer.
'Let us pray,' he says. The disciples bow their heads. He has a last moment here, a pause that fills him with power. He enjoys the parallels, this touching of something untouchable.
'O seekers of the Divine, it has come to me,' he begins. 'A vision I saw in ecstasy of mind. And to which I bear witness now. To you. For you are the chosen. I will share with you what has come to me, what light has fallen into my mind, that we may all benefit.'
The eyes of all are upon him. He feels his power grow and lets play a long pause. The sea rocks them softly.
Matthias says, 'Heed this: Jesus was a teacher. A great teacher. This we all understand. His place is great and certain, but heed me now, his place is amongst all the teachers who have come since the time of Moses. This an angel has made clear to me that we might know the truth.' Matthias's eyes catch water light, flicker with fallen scintilla.
'There is, my fellow seekers, an ultimate source of goodness. This is the Divine Mind. It is not of this earth. It is not of water or soil nor of flesh nor bone. It exists outside of the physical world. It is in an elsewhere. This world where we stand was not created by the Divine Mind, but by a lesser god. This world is flawed. What great god would make a flawed creation? What great god would make a world wherein a death such as that visited on good Prochorus would be allowed? What great god would allow the scourging and the torture, the crucifixions? The storms that drown the sailors? The great quakes that shake and open the ground wherein thousands perish? This is not the work of the ultimate Divine. We are flawed, all of us. But' — Matthias raises his right hand — 'within each of us in this world is a spark of the one Divine Power.' He raises his voice to announce it. 'Yes. It is true. I tell you the good news. Jesus knew this. He said so. He knew he carried the divine spark and was a great teacher. This is why his disciples followed him. For he tried to teach us that we are all carrying the Divine. We can all hope to touch the mind of God if we have the right teacher, one who hears the voice of the one God himself.'