The Living Blood

  Alex, sleep-mussed in her white terry-cloth robe, smiled at him with unmistakable pity. “Let me put on my clothes and fix a bag of food for you to take with you,” she said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help you, but I’m glad you’ve decided to go home. Your son is in my prayers, Lucas.”

  Lucas could only grunt.

  Inside, people were going about their normal waking lives. Moses, the neighbor boy, was already sitting at the dining-room table in his school uniform, eating a bowl of oatmeal while he scribbled at his schoolwork under the overhead light. Sarah was dressed, rinsing something in the kitchen sink, but he did not speak to her. He had spoken all of the words he had in him now.

  The degree of his self-delusion fascinated Lucas as he went into the bathroom and stared hard at himself in the mirror, under the bathroom’s harsh light. His hair, of course, was unkempt, in uneven clumps. He had about a week’s worth of stubble on his face, which he’d been able to tell beforehand from the itching across his chin and cheeks. What shocked him most was the dirt; his face was so dirty that his skin was smudged with a thin film of dusty red-brown clay. He was as filthy as he’d ever been in Peru, when he’d literally spent days in a tree studying the shaman, who’d been perched there for weeks waiting for drug-induced visions.

  Lucas looked like a madman. Anyone could see it. Yet, he’d been so convinced he was right, and because of what? A few coincidences? A lunatic sense of hope? Or pure, simple ego? He had believed he was right because he could not believe he was wrong. And look how far into the abyss it had taken him! It had swallowed him, and he’d never noticed.

  And Jared was thousands of miles away, crying and begging. Sweet Jesus Christ.

  “I just hope you’re still sane enough to drive,” he said to his reflection, honestly unsure.

  That was when it happened. He began to unbutton his shirt, and his fingers brushed across something hard in his breast pocket that he’d thought might be a pen. But, no, not a pen. Something else, his fingers wondered absently, pulling at it. He brought it out so he could look at it.

  He saw it, and his hand shook so violently that he nearly dropped it into the sink.

  A vial of blood. While he’d been sleeping, someone had given him a vial of blood. His thumb and index finger were throbbing with his pulse and the warm waves of heat he felt glowing from the vial. The blood was warm. And it felt nothing like a sort of warmth that might gradually cool; it was a persistent sensation, like the warmth of an animal’s belly. It was a living warmth.

  Lucas’s mind tumbled upside down. Again.

  So, the blood was real. Had Alexis brought it out to him? It seemed unlikely, but who else? Sarah Shabalala, of course! Or perhaps even her brother, who had seemed so eager to tell him something. Either way, it didn’t matter. He was not insane, and he had won. He had won.

  Lucas sat on the toilet for nearly five full minutes, unable to stand.

  Get UP, get UP, get UP, his mind brayed as he stared at the vial with disbelieving eyes. Then, his fingers still trembling, he slipped it back into his pocket. What if he dropped it, for God’s sake? The blood was real, and it was in his pocket.

  Get UP.

  Finally, he did. He turned on the sink’s faucet. The drone of the rushing water in the ceramic sink bounced against the walls in the small, tiled bathroom, dulling Lucas’s frantic mind. He noticed women’s things everywhere: colorful candles, a bowl of rose-scented potpourri, matching hand towels, even a pair of white cotton panties hanging across the shower rail, so dry they were petrified. The objects looked foreign to him since his wife’s death, like artifacts from a lost culture. Lucas cupped his face with warm, soapy water from his palms, washing away what felt like years of dirt and grime from his skin. He felt unclean, but washing helped. The cleaner he felt, the calmer he felt. That was good.

  His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging loosely across his shoulders and chest, but he could feel the weight of the glass vial against his chest inside his breast pocket. That other Lucas, the rational Lucas, had returned to take charge. As soon as he finished washing his face, he was going to button up his shirt, put on his jacket, walk back outside to his car, and make his way back toward Francistown, to the airport. He was going home to save Jared. He didn’t know if he could trust his senses enough to believe it was true, but it certainly seemed true. His wait was over.

  And I’d given up.

  That one fleeting thought, reminding him of the strangeness of his morning, made Lucas’s dizzy spell intensify, threatening to make his knees shake. He couldn’t let that happen. If his knees shook, he’d be delayed, and he couldn’t afford delays. He might already be too late.

  But what if he wasn’t? What if he had won?

  Lucas tried to keep his hopes in check as he rinsed his face with water from the warm stream. His struggle had become epic to him, like a test imposed by the God of the Old Testament: Go forth and find a cure of blood. And though thou shalt be ridiculed, and thou shalt be tormented, the blood is a magic blood, and if your faith remains strong, your son will live. But if thou doubtest me, you will both die in great suffering. So saith the Lord, amen.

  God had tested him, and he had passed.

  Lucas would always remember the irony of it: Until the instant he heard the loud rumbling of some kind of trucks and vehicles outside the bathroom window that just sounded wrong, like the arrival of bad news, it had begun to feel like a day of triumph.

  32

  In nearly five hundred years, none had died. Now, Kaleb was dead through a most gruesome means, and apparently at the hands of a child. His child.

  Dawit had heard some of his brothers insisting that Khaldun had finally invoked the Ritual of Death he had mentioned only a few times in their centuries together, but Dawit knew better. Jessica knew it, too. They had seen how Teferi bled from his nose until he felt weak, probably because he had been standing too close to Fana when she’d struck out at Kaleb. They had seen the horrific drawings their daughter had made in her chamber, as if her hand had been guided by someone else’s, pictures of black clouds spewing a storm of blood. Fana had been nearly catatonic for hours after Kaleb’s death, and when her senses came back, she had wailed inconsolably. He was a mean man, Mommy, he’d heard Fana cry to her mother. He wanted to burn me up like Daddy.

  So, he and Jessica knew even what they did not care to know. The only remaining question now was what to do.

  Feeling brave, Dawit ventured to the Hall to observe Kaleb’s corpse, which had been carefully washed and was being displayed on a white cloth atop the table. The corpse, drained entirely of its blood, looked a sickly gray-brown color, and Kaleb’s muscles appeared to be slightly deflated, loose. His emptied eye sockets were tastefully covered with a white strip of cloth. A healing cloth. There were no flowers, music, or ceremonies from mourning rituals Dawit had seen in the mortal world. Death was new to his brothers, as was mourning, so they had no rituals. The handful of visitors in the Hall when Dawit arrived looked as if they were studying the corpse more than mourning their brother, shuffling around to gaze at it from many angles with stunned expressions. There were no tears—only curiosity, wonder, and deep apprehension.

  “Will he awaken?” Jima said to no one in particular, breaking the studied silence.

  There was no answer at first. Then, Dawit recognized his wise brother Rami’s voice. Rami was a gifted teacher in the House of Music, whose fingers and lips had mastered hundreds of instruments. “He has displeased Khaldun, so he has lost his blood. He will not awaken.”

  “Yet, Khaldun has not explained this to the Council,” ventured Jima. “Why not?”

  “What need has Khaldun for a Council?” Rami said in a mocking tone. “Khaldun does his own will, as always. You on the Council have never been more than his pampered lapdogs.”

  But before Jima could retort, there was another voice. “It was not Khaldun who did this.”

  That sudden knowing voice was Berhanu’s, and they all turned around to see his face. Dawit
saw that the man charged with guarding his wife was glaring him straight in the eye, challenging him. Dawit had no wish to insult Berhanu because both his physical and mental gifts made him too hearty a match; Dawit had seen him deflect blows with the power of his mind. Quickly, Dawit glanced away from Berhanu’s eyes.

  “Who, then?” Jima said.

  Berhanu didn’t answer, but Dawit could still feel his brother’s eyes on him.

  Leave here, Dawit, or worse will come. All has changed.

  Hearing Berhanu’s voice in his head, Dawit dared a glance at his brother. Berhanu’s face was still stern, but his voice had been reasoning, without emotion.

  “The child?” Rami guessed, rubbing his beard. “But she’s so young!”

  “Young and dangerous,” Berhanu said. “I have seen inside her, and she could be the end of us. Even Khaldun will have no say.” From one as loyal to Khaldun as Berhanu, the words sounded like treason. Or worse, like utter hopelessness.

  Dawit had heard enough. He glanced one last time toward his fallen brother Kaleb, whom he felt unexpected grief for. Only Kaleb’s love for Khaldun had made him behave as he did, he knew, and he had been a good warrior. Dawit also glanced one last time at the marvelous designs painted on the walls of the Hall, where he had met with his brothers so many times for shared occasions that had bonded them in a way no human beings before them had been bonded. That, too, made Dawit grieve. Perhaps, he thought, he was visiting this Hall for the last time.

  Without another word to his brothers, Dawit made his way out of the Hall, past another oncoming huddle of mourners. He felt their eyes following him, angry, yet fearful. He would feel those eyes from now on, he told himself. Berhanu was right. All had changed, forever.

  • • •

  “Teka? Let me enter.”

  Khaldun’s attendant, rather than standing faithfully at his post, was slumped against the wall outside of Khaldun’s doorway, his arms wrapped around his knees. Teka’s face was nearly as ashen as the corpse that lay in the Hall. His lips fell apart, and he spoke without looking up at Dawit. “Each new century, there has always been One, an attendant to Khaldun, our blessed Father. I have trained hard for my post. And now he has . . .” Teka swallowed, dumbstruck. “He has bid me to leave.”

  As Teka spoke, something else occurred to Dawit: The music, too, was gone. Khaldun enjoyed continuous music from the garden, but there was no sound in the passageway, only a strange, dead silence. Teka’s empty voice went on. “He has told me not to worship him. But I serve him, Dawit. I must. If I do not serve Khaldun, then . . . who?” His shimmering eyes looked lost.

  Dawit leaned over to squeeze his brother’s shoulder compassionately. Then, sighing, Dawit flung Khaldun’s curtain apart to enter his Father’s chamber.

  Inside, all was stillness. The white fabrics on Khaldun’s walls that resonated to his thoughts lay flat and lifeless, and the lovely colors of his aura Khaldun filled his chamber with had been washed away, leaving none of the soothing shades of lilac that had glowed here during Dawit’s last visit. This place, to Dawit, felt more mournful than the Hall he had just left.

  “Do you know how I built this place?” said a voice behind Dawit, startling him. When he turned, Dawit saw Khaldun standing behind him, gazing up at the patterns on the ceiling. Dawit realized that Khaldun was nearly a head shorter than he was. When had he last stood beside his Father? Khaldun’s robe was slightly askew, revealing the dark brown flesh of his left shoulder.

  “No, Father,” Dawit said, his voice dry.

  “By breaking men’s backs,” Khaldun said with an ironic smile. “I had a friendship with King Lalibela, who was a superstitious man, prone to give much credence to his dreams and visions. After dreaming of my arrival for a month, it was no wonder that he welcomed me like a god. Manipulating dreams was one of the first tricks I learned. But it won me his fealty. He had already dreamed of building those churches above, so this land swarmed with faceless laborers brought here, forced to leave their families behind. Some of those men were here twenty years, or longer. Many of them worked until they could no longer stand straight, until their hands and fingers became useless to them. And King Lalibela gave me two thousand of those men to build my colony, a secret place the world would never see.”

  “The laborers saw it,” Dawit said.

  “Yes, they did. And each of them remained here until he died. I could have chosen them for the Living Blood, Dawit, but I did not. I was very particular about how I envisioned this place, and I wanted to wait until my paintings were finished. And they died, all of them, before I could finish my murals. Every last one died here. Above us, the king died, too.”

  “How did . . .” Dawit nearly stopped before he could ask his next question, but the words tumbled out of his mouth. “How did you keep them here?”

  Finally, Khaldun’s smile grew whole, and his teeth gleamed. “I was their God. Everything I learned about being a god, I learned from those ignorant men. And any who disobeyed were stoned to death by their own number in the Hall. I never had to raise a finger against a single one of them. Their loyalty was quite touching.”

  Dawit felt nervous perspiration pricking at his forehead and underarms. This was more candor than Khaldun had shown him in their previous meeting, more than he suspected Khaldun had shown to anyone. He did not want to hear these words.

  “Yes, you are resisting it,” Khaldun said, nodding. “Ah, Dawit, you are conditioned so well, all of you. It has been four tolls since I exerted the least bit of my own will over any of you, and yet you are all conditioned so well that it has had very little impact. Except on Kaleb, poor soul. Kaleb was learning to think for himself very well, was he not? I was proud of him. When he was brought to me, I had planned to tell him so. I might have imprisoned him for a short time, but I planned to set him free. Truly free, body and mind. But as you can see, even my own plans are meaningless.”

  Dawit felt his psyche beginning to crumble at its foundation. Khaldun was proud of Kaleb for disobeying him? And how had Khaldun exerted his will upon them? In what fashion?

  “And you, Dawit—you made me angry at first, but I grew to be proud of you, too. Perhaps I always knew you were stronger than the rest, even if you did not yourself know it. You never let yourself see that you had set out to defy me, did you? You merely thought you had fallen in love, and then you were trapped on a disobedient path. I thought the mistake had been mine, allowing you to spend too much time away from me. But now, I believe it is more likely I allowed it to happen because I knew this day would come. A guard is as much a prisoner as those he keeps from freedom. I, too, am ready to be free.”

  Dawit could not control a sudden trembling of his hands. Every word from Khaldun’s lips struck deeper and deeper into his heart, breaking it.

  “We have been . . . prisoners to you?”

  “Even now, you are blinded to it. But one day you will reflect on this time, Dawit, and you will understand. You will understand that it is not natural to segregate men from the world, or to prevent them from building their own tribes. My reasons, I thought, were good ones—I wanted to teach, and I wanted to protect mankind from the advantages I had given you and your brothers—but in the end, I was no more than a shepherd who turned men to sheep.”

  “That’s not true, Father,” Dawit said, his emotions threatening to boil over. “You have taught us so much! You have given us your Path—”

  “Yes, my Path,” Khaldun said, nodding. “But my Path is not yours. My only fear is that I might have known that when I began. I do not think so, but it is possible. I gave you and your wife my warnings about the Shadows, and yet I was foolish enough to believe I have been immune to the influence of the Shadows myself. I fear now that they have worked through me. Do you remember my first vision, Dawit? After he stole the blood, the man who gave me the Life Gift asked me, in return, to give it to him. But I grew frightened because I had a vision, and I believed he would be reborn as a monster to mankind. I refused to give him the
blood, and I allowed him to die.”

  “I know the story of your vision,” Dawit said.

  Khaldun’s smile, by now, was frozen into something unsettling, stripped of its mirth. “Now, I think perhaps I was the one reborn as a monster to mankind. I have taught you to shun mortals, and in doing that I have kept this blood from the world. What greater crime is there than that? And to think that poor, simple Judas is the one Christians scorn! Well . . . mankind does not yet know my name. But it will, one day. Of that I am very certain now.”

  “No, Father, you were right to do as you did. We would have been beset by mortals. And how many of my brothers would have delighted in concocting plagues to decimate them? You prevented a war between us.”

  Khaldun’s smile faded, and he sighed. He looked weary.

  If you believe man, at his core, is evil, then that is true. The past century’s worldwide conflicts and unparalleled bloodshed made me only more firm in my belief that mankind would destroy itself over this blood. But it has not destroyed itself, and perhaps it will not. So, what if man is not evil, Dawit? What if all of us could have made a new world? What then?

  Dawit had no ready answer to the question Khaldun had not uttered aloud.

  “Go, Dawit,” Khaldun said in a shadow of his voice, suddenly turning from him.

  “But, Father . . . what about Fana? What should we—”

  “Fana will be what she will be,” Khaldun said, shuffling slowly away in his long robe, toward his mound of pillows. “She cannot remain here. Teach her as I have told you, and pray it is not too late. I am no longer fit to teach you, and I cannot teach Fana. I fear I may have awakened her too early, and I have done her more harm than good. The price of freedom is having to make your own decisions, Dawit. Make yours better than I have made mine.”

  Standing in his Father’s chamber, watching him walk away, Dawit suddenly understood how robbed and confused his poor brother Teka felt. For a long time, he could not even move.