Unholy Empire: Chronicles of the Host, Vol 2: Chronicles of the Host, Book 2 (22 page)

“What is the meaning of this?” Kara demanded to nobody in particular. “They cannot force her out…not yet!”

Berenius scurried about trying to redeem the situation, but it was out of the control of the angels: human will had forced a decision that was unstoppable by mere angelic suggestion. He was completely bewildered. He even tried to approach Abram, who was already in prayer for Hagar and therefore untouchable by the rebels. A large contingent of warrior angels had surrounded Abram, and Berenius had to content himself with watching Lucifer’s thoughtful plan unravel.

As the noise of the camp subsided and the women danced and laughed in a victory celebration, Michael strolled over to where a shocked Kara stood, incredulous as to what had just occurred.

“How could this have happened?” Kara said, mumbling to himself as he rehearsed in his mind his report to Lucifer on the turn of events. “Only moments ago we had control of this situation. How could…”

Only now did Kara see Michael standing nearby. Quickly regaining his composure, he ordered the demons who were still flying about to come to order. He then looked at Michael smugly.

“Like you said, Kara,” beamed Michael, “one can never predict human behavior.” With that, he vanished.

Serus looked at Berenius and repeated Kara’s previous rejoinder: “You would do well to remember that!”

Following the archangel’s lead, he vanished also.

Hagar had wandered several miles from Abram’s community. She could neither return to his camp nor go into Hebron even to beg for help, as she was marked for disgrace. The only hope for her lay in Egypt, and so she made for the road to Shur. The darkness of the night made travel difficult, and, finding herself by a spring, she settled there until morning began to break.

Daron, the angel of whom Kara had spoken, had been stalking her along the way. His ability to seduce desperate humans into self-destruction was renowned in the invisible world of spirits. He tracked the poor woman like a predator after wounded prey.

Tonight, however, he was on a very different mission—a mission not to destroy life but to preserve it—by encouraging Hagar’s return to the camp so that the hope of a false heir might be realized. As he looked upon the exhausted woman, the words of Kara rang sharply in his mind. “Find her, Daron, find Hagar and bring her back to the camp. She must not return to Egypt.”

A quickly convened council of the seven had reasoned that should Hagar manage to escape and live, the child would grow up with a vengeful heart, seeking to bring honor to his disgraced mother and claim the heritage of his father. And while the future civil conflict within Abram’s house would be amusing, it could also prove unpredictable as to its outcome. Such strife might prove even a greater disaster than if the child were raised in Abram’s tents. At least with Abram the child could be managed properly, and the prophecy might diminish in significance with each passing generation.

How to do it? That was the issue at hand. Daron decided that perhaps if he appeared to her as an angel of light—one who was very friendly—he could persuade her to return. Humans were always looking for signs. Such a visitation would surely get her back.

Or perhaps he should appear as Hagar’s own mother, who had died in Egypt. That would do nicely—a mother pleading in anguish for the safe delivery of her daughter’s child. Yes, that would do.

Suddenly a light shone all around the rocky area, creating a bluish-white world in which Hagar’s silhouette was barely discernible in the intense brightness. Daron had felt this Presence before and immediately fell to the ground prostrate. It was the Lord Most High in the guise of the Angel of the Lord.

“
Hagar!
”

Hagar could only make out a figure standing in the core of a brilliant light. At first she thought it might be one of the demons who had plagued her sleep recently. But there was something different about this Person—and she was not afraid.

“
Hagar, servant of Sarai. What are you doing out here? Where are you going?
”

At first Hagar could not speak. But something within told her that this was a good presence, and she felt strangely at peace. She answered.

“I…I am running away from my mistress, Sarai.”

“
You must return to her
,” said the Person. “
You must go back and submit to her
.”

“But she hates me,” said Hagar. “And she hates the child within me. She said that she would never accept my child as her heir even though it was all her idea! I will have nothing for me
or
my son!”

“
But you shall, Hagar
,” came the Voice. “
You shall have a son and I will increase your descendants so that they shall be too numerous to even count. I will give you a great inheritance of your own! Hear me:

You are now with child and you will have a son,
You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers!”

She bowed down and began to worship the Lord, realizing at last with whom she was speaking. “You are the Most High God, who sees me in my grief, who saves me in my distress. Blessed be the name of the Lord God—the God of my master Abram and my mistress Sarai!”

As quickly as it appeared, the light disappeared. Hagar rubbed her eyes, which were burning from looking into the brightness of just a few seconds ago. She looked back toward Abram’s camp—the way she must now go. But she went with a new sense of purpose. She now understood that she didn’t have to prove her son to anyone. Whether or not she would ever be esteemed in Sarai’s eyes, she now knew that she was esteemed in the eyes of the Lord—and that was all that mattered.

Daron recovered from the Lord’s visit, completely amazed at the turn of events. The Lord Himself had actually done what Daron had set out to do. But why? It made no sense. Hagar was returning to the camp to have her child! Yet the prophecy given to Hagar made it clear that this son—Ishmael—though he would become a great nation in his own right, would not be the son of promise.

Hagar would no longer feel the need to advance her son in Abram’s eyes. Why? Because, the Lord, it seems, had bought Hagar and Ishmael off by giving them an inheritance of their own. Daron left immediately to report to the council, wondering why the Most High allowed Hagar to return to Abram.

“Because the Most High has a sentimental weakness for human folly,” said Kara. “That is why Hagar has returned to Abram.”

Kara’s pride had been stung by Hagar’s abrupt decision to bolt. It showed a critical flaw in his thinking about human behavior—the very thing he had admonished to Michael. He had vowed he would never again be caught by surprise. And so he spoke before the council, defending his plan and blaming the primitive natures of humans for his inability to anticipate what had happened.

“I sometimes think the Lord is just as capricious as the humans He made in His image,” said Lenaes, who had risen to Kara’s defense. “Both God and man can be wildly unpredictable.”

“Yes,” said Pellecus. “But by now you should realize that the Lord is fully committed to these creatures. He didn’t have to send Hagar back. He could have allowed her to die in the wilderness. After all, she does not carry the child of promise.” He looked sternly at Kara. “Not anymore, at any rate.”

“Don’t lay the blame at my feet, my learned friend,” Kara shot back. “You and the wisdom of this council saw the possibility of substituting a fraudulent heir in the hope of capturing the prophecy.”

“Enough of this,” said Lucifer, who seemed bored at the council. “It’s clear that we were mistaken. However, there is one bright spot to Abram’s folly. The Most High will create a nation out of Ishmael that will prove bothersome to his brothers. We can look forward to exploiting the bad blood that will exist between Ishmael and the true child of promise for years to come!”

“So what do we do now, my prince?” asked Rugio.

Lucifer smiled at his favorite warrior.

“We wait, Rugio, we wait. Abram has proven that, though he is a man of faith he is also a man of folly,” said Lucifer. “He has been tested many times by the Lord and failed. Recall that when he was called out of Ur, he delayed arriving in Canaan for years.”

“Yes, but ultimately he arrived and in so doing was obedient to the Lord,” said Pellecus. “And God blessed him mightily.”

“And when the famine hit Canaan he fled into Egypt rather than trust in the Lord,” Lucifer continued. “As a result of that little episode he almost lost his wife Sarai out of fear of the king, and he picked up the troublesome Hagar!”

“Still the Lord has seen his heart and declared him righteous,” said Pellecus.

“Most recently he listened to the desperate pleadings of his wife and conceived through Hagar a false heir, and we were all hopeful. Nevertheless, he has created a nation that will one day plague him!”

“And still the Lord allowed Hagar back into the camp,” said Pellecus. “And still, and still, and still! My lord, I admit that the pattern of failure we see in Abram is encouraging. But the prophecy is alive and well. It seems pointless to continue!”

For a moment, Lucifer looked at the members of the council, who were completely silent.

“And still we must,” he said, almost whispering.

“What are we to do, lord?” asked Rugio. “We are your servants.”

“We wait for another test, Rugio…and another. If we can depend on one thing about humans, my brothers, it is that they have a propensity for failure. I predict that someday Abram will face a test that will strike at his very core—and
then
we shall see how righteous this man really is.”

Chronicles of the Host

Abraham

Hagar indeed returned to Sarai and humbled herself, and in due time gave birth to a son, whom she named Ishmael, as the Lord had instructed her. The boy grew up, and Abram was very fond of him; but there remained the vacancy of an unfulfilled promise, as he and Sarai did not hear from the Lord for many years. The promise, it seemed, had been silenced.

None of the Host knew when or if the Lord would deliver the promise. Some speculated that perhaps the Most High was punishing Abram for his rashness in the incident with Hagar; others thought that Ishmael might turn out to be the one foretold.

Crispin often said that the foolishness of angels in speculation is almost as foolish as the speculations of men, and so he was proven correct. For when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him, encouraging him that the promise was indeed alive—and that Sarai would give birth to a son!

The Lord also established a covenant of circumcision, by which all the future male children were set apart to the Lord in a symbolic act of the sacred and the profane. Most significant of all, as far as the prophecy was concerned, was that the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “father of nations”; He also changed the name of Sarai to Sarah, meaning “princess of nations.”