Mad Gods - Predatory Ethics: Book I (10 page)
-
Idammah-Gan
Codex
- Depth of
Correction II —
TIME: 8TH MONTH, 17TH DAY, 4TH YEAR OF THE REPUBLIC. IBERIA
This time, they call me Remus.
It’s strange what you notice when you’re dying. At
worst, the gash in my side was a distraction. Through the grill of my helmet, I
see everyone in a shade.
This is what I notice.
I’m calm and that surprises me. I’ve dropped to my
knees, while my opponent grabs my chin and snaps my head back. His blade
touches my straining throat. I don’t care to look at the official decision.
Soon enough, I’ll know.
As I wait, I encounter a familiar, errant thought.
Where will I end up this time? Once the gash my
opponent just opened in my jugular stops pumping out my life, what will I be?
I know I’ll come back. I’ve been coming back since -
I can’t remember when, though this is the first time I’ve thought of this on
the bright side of death. I know why and I’m dying. I know all of life’s
answers. The reasons these people reveled in my death. They scream and jeer at
my falling body. I represent everybody whom they hate. Everything that has ever
hurt or pleased me no longer requires an explanation.
I’ve dropped forward to lie facedown. I see this from
afar. I see my opponent step away from me and throw up his hands, basking in
the cheering and adulation. I convulse three more times and am finally still.
It feels like I’m rising above this scene. It’s now
growing dim and distant.
There is nothing here, but my awareness. There is
only blackness, and beyond this blackness, there is void. There is nothing
here, nothing. I’m the only one who can see this.
TIME: AUGUST 18TH, 1961. ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
With the account of each subsequent life, the
author’s wishes are deeper. Beneath the continued battle, the story of his lives
floats on a layer of colossal frustration.
He believes he can reach the light, which is his
destination. Every time he thinks that he’s almost captured it, the distance is
halved, yet he never succeeds. The light is always just out of his reach.
Kosta knew that he would never be able to reach it.
He used the wrong vehicle. He finally saw, understood, the connection he felt
to the author’s longing: it was the hope for peace. They shared a revulsion
against the turmoil and chaos into which they were forced. The monumental,
historic struggles for souls, world influence and control, were no longer
appealing. The struggle Kosta now sought was more personal and, in the end, was
merely that for which anyone ever really fought.
-
Idammah-Gan
Codex
- Depth of Correction
III -
TIME: AUGUST 19TH, 33 A.D. GOLGOTHA, JERUSALEM, ISREAL
My mind is in a complete fog. People are crying. I
can’t tell how many and for whom. There is nothing of which I’m sure, except
for the pain in my wrists and ankles. I try to look to my left and to my right,
but I cannot see past my extremities. I only wish that I couldn’t see even that
far.
Try as I might, my glance keeps returning to the
nails that hold my arms and ankles to this cross. This is the only way I know
they’re still attached. Hours ago, they went numb. Hanging this way, I struggle
to breathe. I only think about pushing my weight back up. There is no way in
creation I will go through this again.
When they first hammered me to the wood, the pain
nearly drove me mad. My mind threw screams out of my mouth — screams that
continued well past when they turned me over to hammer the nails back, ensuring
I would stay on the cross. My mind gibbered disbelief at the fact that I was in
this position.
I think these words came out of my mouth, but of this
I am not certain. “Oh, no. This is not possible. No, no, no, no.” These three
phrases repeatedly chased each other out of someone’s head, through their
mouth, and out past their lips, though I don’t know if it was I, or one of the
other two.
The crying continues and I hope to die. Now, this
pain is everything to me. It has taken over both my vision and hearing. I no
longer know what is happening around me. I could be the one crying, but I’m
very confused.
Someone screams, startled by the thunder and
lightning around the hill on which they chose to plant these trees of pain.
Rain comes down like fat tears and gives me a small relief, but does not
restore my grasp of sight and sound. Time crawls by and I’m still breathing,
living this misery.
“King of Jews. Why don’t you call upon your God and
save us?” One of us says.
Is it me? At such a time, could I be so cruel to
another who shared my pain?
“He does not deserve to be here. We have done things
in our lives to deserve this place. He has done nothing.” The response is
instant and I instantly feel humiliated and exulted.
It must be days we’ve been up here; still, I don’t
know how to interpret my own senses. The rain continues and my tears join it.
I’m sure that I sob with relief, because I feel my strength and life finally
ebbing. Endurance is overrated. I wish I were weaker and able to endure far
less.
“Father, why have you forsaken me?” The voice is
filled with sobbing and comes from everywhere. It brings further darkness and
depression. The sky has come closer to my face and reflects the bruises and
blood that now describe my body. The tears and sobs leave me, unheard amid the
rain and thunder.
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they
do.”
Who does? Why does the voice seek this God, this
treacherous Father, who allows this to be done to His son? For a few breaths, I
am angry at the criminal violation, which this begged-for parent shows to all
his children. Why do we look to Him for this withheld comfort and support?
My outrage continues and, in my death, it follows me
to the void. In the nothing I now face, I am alone with my belief that no help
shall ever be given, though it be earned a thousand times. I am on my own, to
grow strong or be annihilated.
I also think that this seems oddly familiar. In my
thoughts, this strange skewing of priorities is nothing new. A silent
revelation envelops me and pushes all else aside. In violent death, this always
happens. I remember past lives. I remember the death in the arena, as well as when
I stood proud at Thermopylae. Not much else, apart from this, is important. Not
my life then, nor any lives before, or since.
TIME: AUGUST 20TH, 1961. ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
Long ago, Uncle George and Malone told Kosta
everybody searched for truth. Many imposed their version so they could justify
and prove it to be the only truth. Kosta wanted to show that the real truth
needed no proof. It wasn’t confined to any single interpretation — not
Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.
The
point was to not get distracted by historic or cultural and familial beliefs.
The three most popular religions taught that the Antichrist would initiate a
reign of darkness. Their belief was making it true. Kosta read this and saw it
reflected in books and many prophesies. For millennia, the struggle between
good and evil had been center-stage in our awareness. Some attributed the
highest attainments of mortals to divine inspiration, while the basest and
lowest crimes and behavior were defined as evil. This somehow cheapened or
excused those achievements and failures.
This explanation was too simplistic. There should be
accountability for actions, both collectively and individually. People were
capable of both good and evil. Nobody pushed them to do one or the other. No
singular, outside force existed. It became real because we didn’t want to
accept our power for our actions; when we sin, we assign blame to others. We
can’t even take credit for success. We thank God and never blame him for
failures.
Kosta was glad that he had taken the time to find the
Codex. Glad that wily, old Plethon had not said where to look. Had it been an
accident that he didn’t ask him where it was before granting him his peace? Or
did Kosta need to search through these other books, which led him to this
moment of epiphany? In the intervening months, he went to library after
library, yet wasn’t bothered by the setback. Through the mundane toil of the
process, he learned more than he could’ve imagined.
For a second, he looked away from the
Idammah-Gan
and stared wistfully at the gathering twilight and the setting sun. He reminded
himself he would have to stop for the day. His reading could not continue
without the sun, which kept the book’s guardians imprisoned in its pages. As he
closed it, he glanced down at the passage he finished and was struck
motionless, awed. The passage was reassembling itself into something horrific,
which tugged at the edge of his reason. With a start, he snapped the book shut
and shuddered. If he had waited a few more seconds, who knows what would’ve
happened. Ordering a bottle of
Metaxa
cognac, he wondered what he would see the
next time he opened the Codex.
TIME: AUGUST 3OTH, 1961. WHITTIER MANSION, SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA, U.S.A
The echo of a shot was followed by the sharp sound of
a gun hitting the floor. Two men faced the one who fired, but were too shocked
to be frightened.
“I don’t want to hear excuses for your incompetence”
the high, raspy voice continued. “You find the boy, or you won’t be as lucky as
he!!” Mossy Akhbar had never seen his master in this state. He was used to a
cold voice, which seemed to come from a great distance. Even in moments of
great anger, it never rose above a monotone.
“Get that meat out of here.” Balzeer McGrath
indicated the body, staining the carpet at his feet. Three rail-thin men
appeared from behind heavy black velvet curtains. They picked the body up and
carried it away from their master’s view, followed quickly by Mossy.
“Mordecai, what have the others reported?” He
collapsed into a great chair. He had used a gun, and as distasteful as that
was, the blood made up for it. He used an old massive Browning pistol. Fired
five feet away from a target, it created a hole, large enough a full-grown cat
could crawl into.
And the blood, oh what a splatter.
Mordecai came forward and, before answering, eyed the
stain on the floor. There were reports of days like this, days that dominoed
into complete carnage. He had to be mindful of what he said. If he needed to
lie in his response, he had better be convincing. Supreme Tribunal McGrath was
definitely in a mood.
“As Harold indicated, Master, the Redeemer did not
come. Nowhere in Jerusalem were the signs for the monumental birth for which we
hoped. It seems…” A halting hand silenced him. He looked away, then back.
“I don’t feel him,” the hand then went to his mouth.
“We all know that he isn’t in Jerusalem, idiot. Where is he?”
The Supreme Tribunal had to answer to others who did
not tolerate ignorance or explanations. They did not have horns and tails, as
the initiates believed, but were no less ruthless.
“Guide us, sir. We do not know where to look.”
Mordecai Aronovich could see that Balzeer was losing his grip on reality. This
was the most monumental event since Christ’s birth and he had lost control. For
the past nine months, he dispatched acolyte after acolyte to every corner of
the earth. He could have made another Antichrist by now. One thing was clear
— their master did not know where to find their Redeemer. He had relied
entirely on age-old prophecies and the ramblings of shackled psychics. The head
of Lucifer’s Church lost him, poof, just like the proverbial smoke and
brimstone.
“Why don’t we sacrifice?” Mordecai knew Balzeer found
the act distasteful. It wasn’t the blood he found unappealing, rather the work.
He had gotten lazy. He preferred to shoot someone.
Where was the lovely whisper that came with the slash or stab of a knife? An
especially sharp knife could make a wound seem part of the body, until the slit
opened up and released its gory charge.
“No. I’ll meditate on it. We’ll find him. We have
to.” Balzeer knew Mordecai was testing him. In another ten years, Balzeer saw
Mordecai in his chair. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
He saw this as plainly as Nostradamus saw the birth
of their Redeemer. He knew that if he tried to eliminate Mordecai, he would
only hasten Mordecai’s ascent. It was a sound strategy — a strongly
positioned adversary, allowing the weaker to execute a plan of action.
“But it didn’t happen where he said it would!”
Balzeer sprang up and, with barely controlled anger, turned away from Mordecai.
No one could see the tremble in his hands. He held
onto the shivering terror too tightly. No one had yet come to inquire about his
progress, but he knew that he was lucky they hadn’t. The tattoos of his office
were itching, indicating the displeasure of his superiors. Soon enough, they
would be dispatching their demands. When this happened, he didn’t know what he
would do.