A Just Farewell (12 page)

“Over here, Abraham!” One of the young,
bearded clerics, the man with the wide shoulders who had executed
the butcher Paul, waved to catch Abraham’s attention. “The high
cleric was just asking about you. I think he has something to say
to you, but you must hurry.”

Abraham caught his breath. “Joseph’s
daughters are trapped in the butcher shop. Alexis has a broken
leg.”

The cleric nodded. “I promise we will get to
them as quickly as possible. It will be good to find survivors. But
hurry to the high cleric’s apartments, Abraham. The high cleric is
badly hurt, and he might not have much time.”

An invitation to the high cleric’s quarters
was rarely afforded to anyone within the village, and any visit to
the spiritual leader’s home was customarily an occasion marked with
great solemnity. Yet Abraham felt none of that formality as he ran
towards the high cleric’s home. Bearded clerics, armed with the
most formidable rifles ever salvaged from the ruin of the old
world, surrounded the ladder that led downward into the high
cleric’s quarters, but all of them nodded at Abraham when the boy
arrived, all apparently pleased to discover that the guns of the
blasphemers had failed to bury Abraham. The subterranean halls of
the high cleric appeared in good order, for the tribe spared no
expense in fortifying their leader’s underground abode, and no home
was dug as deeply into the earth as the one occupied by the high
cleric. Abraham looked upon the mosaics of broken glass that told
the story of the Maker’s creation, and of the Maker’s heroes who
swept away the old and decadent world’s perversion so that one day
the Maker might return beauty to an empty canvas. Abraham wondered
if any of the small, colorful stones he had returned from the metal
garden occupied a small, glimmering place in any of those mosaics.
The possibility made him proud. He had so often admired the way his
mother worked her loom, and he had so often stared, amazed, at the
intricate patterns woven in the capes of the tribe’s heroes to tell
of the fallen warriors’ exploits. Had the Maker not blessed him
with a butcher’s training, Abraham would have hoped that the Maker
might have shown his hands the secrets of creating such
masterpieces out of nothing more than colorful bits of broken
glass.

“Hurry here, child,” a raspy whisper
attracted Abraham’s attention just as he allowed his thoughts to
drift too deeply into a mosaic. “Oh, how I regret not inviting you
earlier into my home, Abraham, so that you might’ve had a better
opportunity to admire those glass pictures. But I suspected this
day was coming, and you had such limited time to prepare for the
purpose the Maker has gifted to you.”

The high cleric lay upon the largest bed
Abraham had ever seen, surrounded by luxurious pillows and covered
in thick blankets. Though the bedding looked comfortable and warm,
Abraham noticed how sweat beaded upon the cleric’s forehead. The
cleric’s hands looked thin as they waved Abraham to come
closer.

“Does my visit pain you?”

The high cleric attempted to laugh at the
boy’s concern, but the effort turned into a cough that contorted
his face.

“I feel very little, Abraham,” returned the
high cleric. “The Maker gifted you with a great heart. Never let
anyone tell you that a warrior’s heart cannot hold such compassion,
Abraham. It takes a great heart to understand what we fight for, a
great heart to understand what makes the unbelievers so vile.”

“Are you badly hurt?”

The high cleric nodded. “The Maker begins to
summon me to his side, son. I was too slow in finding my shelter
when the castle fired upon our village, and a blast from their guns
broke my back. No, don’t look like that, Abraham. I feel nothing
below my waist, so my suffering is very minor. Your brother’s
attack got their attention. Your brother’s bravery forced the
heathens in the sky to roar their guns, something they haven’t done
for decades. That means they’re frightened. It means they realize
that we’re about to cleanse them from the Maker’s heavens. I needed
to see you before I leave for the Maker, Abraham, so that I can ask
you if you’re ready to undergo the final ritual of your man-making.
I needed to ask if you’re ready to receive your cape and take
battle to the unbelievers as did your good brother Ishmael.”

“I’m ready.” Abraham felt surprised by his
own certainty.

“Forgive me for ever doubting you,” the
cleric smiled, “but you are so young, Abraham. Your youth makes you
such a formidable weapon. It’s your youth that will gain you access
to those unbelievers’ castles. They won’t be able to resist you
when you plead with them for a seat on one of those rockets lifting
into their fortresses. Their arrogance will trick them into
believing that they are saving you from a wasted world. Their
naivety will fail to suspect the power held within your body. You
will release that power in the heart of one of those towers,
Abraham, and you will bring a castle crashing back to earth the
very moment the Maker receives you in his heaven. Are you ready for
such a thing?”

“I’m ready.” Abraham didn’t feel the
slightest hesitation or doubt.

“The castle must’ve shattered our village
for you to be so certain. Did you lose much in the attack,
Abraham?”

Abraham nodded, feeling more anger than
sorrow. “I fear my father and mother are crushed beneath the earth.
I’m afraid nothing remains of Josef and his wife.”

“And what of your young twins?”

“They’re alive, but Alexis’ leg is terribly
broken.”

The high cleric sighed. “Know that those
girls will be stronger for it. I regret you’ll not have more time
with them, that you will not have the opportunity to feel the Maker
love those girls through your body. I tried to give you what I
could of manhood, Abraham. That’s why I encouraged you to begin
your year of man-making so early. Why I pushed you so quickly into
the butcher’s trade. Why I wanted you to mark those faces of those
girls though your hands were so young. I wanted to give you every
chance I could to understand what the Maker calls you to kill for.
You make me very happy, Abraham.”

Abraham grinned. “And I hope I please the
Maker.”

The high cleric again coughed, and Abraham
noticed the blood that gathered in the corners of the old man’s
mouth. “You do. Now go and tell the clerics above that you are
ready, and they will prepare you for your next trial. Abraham, I
promise to do my best to be here when you recover from that
procedure, but if I’m not, know that you make me proud, and that I
will greet you with the Maker the next time we meet.”

Abraham gently squeezed the high cleric’s
hand before departing. He owed much to that long-bearded cleric,
for the high cleric’s direction had transformed Abraham from a boy
into a man. As a child, he had been so afraid of that elderly man,
who now appeared so frail, so weak, surrounded by so much bedding,
his back broken and his breaths numbering among his last. Thanks to
the customs the high cleric oversaw, and protected, Abraham had
matured by bounds in the short weeks following the digging of his
hole. The high cleric had recognized Abraham’s potential from the
start; he had foreseen how Abraham would, with a little
encouragement, grow to wear his own warrior’s cape. As a child,
Abraham believed the high cleric delivered only the Maker’s
punishment; but on the cusp of manhood, Abraham learned how the
high cleric in truth administered the Maker’s blessings.

Another of the bearded clerics offered
Abraham a hand to help him mount the last rungs of the ladder that
deposited him back upon the surface. “The high cleric told us that
you were ready for your final ritual. We’re prepared to administer
the procedure whenever you want, Abraham.”

“Should we wait until we finish searching
through all the rubble?”

The cleric shrugged. “The men of the village
all know how to dig without the supervision of their clerics.
Besides, the best way to answer the guns of that castle floating
overhead is to prepare all the warriors we might. Do you want to
keep the Maker waiting when he summons you to battle within the
stars?”

Abraham held his chin high and didn’t flinch
to return that cleric’s stare. “I do not. I’m ready to become a man
and to wear my cape.”

The bearded cleric tussled Abraham’s hair.
“Then follow us. The unbelievers’ guns have collapsed the chambers
we typically employ for this final rite, but the butcher shop’s
rooms should well suffice.”

* * * * *

Abraham sensed none of the irony as the
clerics escorted him into the butcher shop’s slaughter chamber,
where the blood of so many creatures had stained the floor on its
journey down the central drain. There, the clerics hoisted Abraham
upon a cot carried into the room before binding his ankles and
wrists, a precaution the cleric’s told Abraham would protect him
from unnecessary hurt should he prematurely return from the numbing
dreams the ritual would gift to him. Abraham in no way felt like
any of the animals that had been taken to slaughter in that
chamber. He knew he was about to become a warrior, infused with the
Maker’s divine fury and wrath. As the clerics prepared the potion
that would grant him sleep, Abraham wondered what visions had come
to his brother Ishmael, and to his father, when they too had lain
upon a cot while the clerics implanted the Maker’s weapon within
their bodies before granting them their own capes to proudly
display upon their backs. Abraham again marveled at how strong he
had become since he had dug that hole to mark the beginning of his
man-making, for he felt no child’s fear as he watched the cleric’s
sharpen the glistening knives and prepare the needle and thread
that would be employed during the procedure.

“This will taste very bitter,” a cleric
presented a clay mug filled with a chalky, gray concoction, and
Abraham’s face contorted as he smelled the pungent odor carried by
its steam, “and it will hard to swallow at first. There is no shame
in drinking it in small sips. We would prefer to administer this
through a needle in your arm, but the attack forces us to make do
as best we might.”

Abraham swallowed greedily at the foul
drink. He was about to become warrior, and he wouldn’t be
intimidated by medicine. But his stomach and throat revolted at his
courage, and Abraham vomited and coughed no small measure of the
potion back. The clerics in the room laughed.

“He might be young,” chuckled a cleric who
gripped a thin, glistening knife, “but he certainly has the will
for it.”

Another cleric who gingerly handled a
strange package nodded. “He’s not the first to soil his tunic with
regurgitation. I’m sure he kept plenty in his stomach all the
same.”

The cleric who administered the drink looked
into Abraham’s eyes as he drifted a finger back and forth. “I need
you to count to fifty for me, Abraham. Then, the Maker will grant
you wonderful dreams, and you will feel no pain as we implant the
Maker’s fury beneath your skin. You will be a warrior when you
wake, with a cape of your own.”

Abraham’s proud voice reached the number of
six before sleep closed his eyes.

* * * * *

The bearded clerics worked silently upon the
boy. They wielded their blades with uncustomary care, for they
couldn’t afford to knick an artery with a slip of a hand, nor to
give infection a firm foothold upon their patient by clumsily
working any of the instruments that imparted the Maker’s power to
the body tied upon the cot. When the boy stirred, they ceased their
labor to pour more potion down the sleeping child’s throat, careful
that they didn’t send their patient into a deathly slumber by
administering too much of the medicine that saved the child from
feeling the procedure’s pain.

With their concentration so focused upon
their surgery, none of those clerics noticed the orange, burrowing
cockroach that watched from the shadows that leaned against the
chamber’s walls. That bug leaned back upon its haunches, and it
waved its fine, sniffing antennae in the air to monitor the status
of the clerics’ operation.

None of those bearded clerics would’ve
likely given the bug much consideration had they paused in their
delicate work to notice its presence within the chamber. They
might’ve shrugged upon noticing the orange color of its shell.
Though the swirls that decorated its carapace might’ve peaked their
curiosity, the working of the needle and the stitching wouldn’t
have afforded those clerics the time to debate if such a strange
bug might have been one of the great devil’s minions. Likely, those
bearded clerics would’ve merely allowed that orange bug to watch
until it scampered away, for implanting the bomb within that boy
was too important a task to allow themselves the simple,
distracting pleasure of crushing a cockroach beneath their
boot.

Certainly, the bearded clerics would have
had no way of realizing how intently that cockroach with the orange
shell and the painted swirls regarded them, nor any way whatsoever
of recognizing the danger surrounding such a little bug.

* * * * *

“Abraham, come back to us.”

A pain throbbed within Abraham’s skull as he
became aware of a warm sensation of light swaying back and forth
upon the back of his closed eyelids. His fingers tingled, and a
pain tugged upon his abdomen when he wiggled his toes. Wincing,
Abraham slowly opened his eyes as a rumble of murmurs rushed into
his ears.