Felon was gone. And as she let her perceptions flow outward she tried to love him, but found she ached for him. His power was formidable and his extremity attractive. Everything about him was concentrated, heavy hatred. And that was just a negative form of love. She could find a way past it. You who are so worthy of my love…
The men talked briefly after Felon disappeared. They returned to the car. The doors were opened and they looked in. Their auras were a rainbow of emotion. She found it in herself to smile.
“I have keys to the Tower,” she said. “I’ll help you.” She had kept a passkey on a chain around her neck. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I fly, I come to Thee, throwing myself into the arms of Thy tender mercy .
“See,” Tiny patted the dashboard and looked at Driver. “ That’s what I’m talking about!”
66 – Hope
“One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you. Therefore take heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God.” Stoneworthy meditated on these words as he marched. After the battle, the army reformed and started moving east. The minister took the time to move forward, to think.
Truly, he had fought as more than a man-was made capable of inhuman feats by the Change. Since he could no longer suffer the afflictions of the living, he was able to fight past human limitations. Ironically, he had found a sort of immortality in death- justification. He needed better reasons to go on killing. He had read every passage; in fact the Bible was full of such incidents where God released his wrath upon his children. The Lord in heaven would kill fifty thousand at a stroke, or turn the tide for Israel against the Philistines-only to turn on the Israelites in punishment. You do not question God. Noah didn’t.
But Stoneworthy was full of questions. He was a minister and teacher not a soldier. He tried to console himself with thoughts of the Crusades, but they had made a bloody work of converting the heathens, taking the Lord’s word too literally. Heathens are people, too.
Stoneworthy corrected himself. Heathens worshipped other gods in complete opposition to God’s commandments. Christianity had done great evil in its enthusiasm to do good, and missionaries usually only slightly preceded colonization. The truth was, Stoneworthy had always had difficulty with the Crusades. The ends could not justify the means. This line of thought did nothing to relieve his frustration and guilt. God had commanded him to action.
A dead woman’s approach pulled him from his thoughts. She looked to be a pre-Change forty years, and would have looked more at home carrying a briefcase than an assault rifle. Her hair was scarlet and emphasized the paleness of her skin. Her left eye was shriveled and had sunken into the skull. Stoneworthy recognized Corporal Milton.
“Sir,” she said, her voice flat. “Captain Updike has called a halt. His officers have compiled a list of casualties and equipment he wishes to discuss with you.”
“I’ll be along shortly.” He fell silent. His mind had just begun to wander down self-blaming corridors when he noticed something. A pale light had cast the dead woman’s face in shadow. It took him some moments to realize what he was looking at. It had been so long. A murmur filled the air over the army as other marchers stopped and noticed it too. Turning quickly, Stoneworthy looked up into the thick blanket of cloud.
The moon! It was half full, but it shone with rare brilliance. The image blurred quickly before Stoneworthy noticed the distortion was due to his tears. It rode a frosted hole in the cloud like a sail-tall billowing cumulus forms marked its progress.
“The Moon!” a haggard cry went up. “The moon!” A chorus of voices followed. Indeed it was the moon-Stoneworthy stumbled away from Corporal Milton walking as if in a dream. Over and over he heard his own voice groaning, “The Moon!”
“That’s the sign,” he said, like a prophet. The moon had disappeared over a hundred years before only to be glimpsed from the Tower’s highest floors. Yet there it was, riding over the landscape as it had so long ago. “The Moon!”
He ran toward Updike’s transport. The preacher would be pleased. Perhaps this would undo the pain that bound him. He hurried by the gathered throng. The army was fast breaking up into weeping chattering groups. “The Moon!” The words flew toward the sky from a thousand jubilant throats. Stoneworthy stumbled many times loathing the possibility that he could lose sight of the moon.
Oliver Purdue was the first to meet him. The dead man’s face was a shining white mask of hope. “Oh brother!” he yelled, and broke free of the figures that stood by Updike’s truck. Purdue threw his arms around Stoneworthy.
“Oh brother!” The minister returned the embrace, pushed past his self-control to passion.
“Oliver!” He held Purdue at arm’s length. “Do you think it is a sign that the Lord approves?”
“Yes!” Oliver laughed exuberantly. “Why else could God peel away this eternal blanket of night? And look!” Oliver pointed with a bandaged arm toward the east. “It lights our way. It shows the path to righteousness.”
Indeed, as Stoneworthy followed Oliver’s gesture he saw the winding shimmer-a sparkling ribbon wound its way through the hills toward the City of Light.
“We are not far!” Stoneworthy smiled. “And the Lord points the way.” He clutched Oliver’s dead fingers. “He heard us brother! He listened to our hearts in this tragic time when we have been forced to embrace the darkness of war. He has shown us His heart to lift our own!” He dropped to his knees. “We must pray! Kneel here beside me.”
“Yes brother!” Purdue muttered dropping, overcome by tears. “Oh God in Heaven…”
Stoneworthy concentrated for a moment on his guilt, on the painful memories of death that had walked with him that day. He let it fill his heart until his eyes grew heavy in his head. Tears fell down his cheeks.
“Oh Lord!” he pleaded with the sky. “Oh Father, I have sinned this day!” Beside him, Purdue wept. Around them, Stoneworthy heard the supplication of his comrades. Not daring to look away, he imagined the army, still streaked with battle grime, dropping to their knees and praying, praying for a break in their long hopeless deaths, praying for forgiveness for their sins that day, for their sins in life.
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” The prayer rose up unrehearsed, pulled from the army by the moon. Stoneworthy compiled his long sad list of sins-called from his memory all the deeds of his life.
“Oh Father!” He was stricken with a profound sadness. How he hoped Karen could see this. “Oh Lord protect her. Oh God, give her this sign too. Protect her…” His emotions ran from the depths, flooding upwards to a pale point of light that burned into his eyes. “Save her!” He wept. The minister could not escape his guilt. True he had died too quickly to help Karen, but he should not have convinced her to go with him in the first place. She already had too much to bear.
And since his resurrection what had he done? He had joined an army of the dead bent on destroying the corrupt rulers of the world. And where was she? And why had he not acted? What had the flames that burned upon the garbage bags but not consumed them said? “ With this army shall you strike at the heart of Evil!” That was the only way to save her-the only direction he could take for salvation.
How strange that at this time, before the blazing light of God, after this terrible day of war, how strange that he would think of her. Except that his mind was not occupied by the destruction of his life. And now, as the Lord’s love lifted his sins from him, after he had washed his hands in the blood of God’s enemies, he could feel his loss.
“Oh Karen!” he blurted, his eyes adrift in tears. “I’m so sorry!”
The minister felt a hand on his shoulder. He wiped at his eyes, looked at his friend Oliver.