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Eben holds up a hand and does something he has never done before—he closes the hatch and turns the bolt that seals the room.
He turns to the Nethinim.
“It is time?” Same-El asks, his voice shaking.
“Yes, brother. You two have the honor.”
Ithamar’s eyes widen; Same-El’s shoulders shudder. Both look as if they are about to buckle from fear.
But Eben knows better.
Opening the ark is an esteemed honor for the Keepers. The highest honor.
Ithamar breaks all protocol and grabs Eben’s hand and tugs it like a child.
“Can it really be that we are so lucky?” Same-El asks.
“Yes, brother.”
“We will see what Uncle Moses last saw?” Ithamar asks. “Touch what he alone was allowed to touch?”
“If the ark allows, yes. But you know the risks, brothers.”
Yes, the risks.
The Aksumites know all the tales and more. How the ark, if opened, will smite even the most ardent of adherents mercilessly and without fail. How it will unleash hellfire upon the Earth, and pestilence, and untold death. How it will run rivers of blood and scorch the sky and poison the very air, since opening it is not the will of the Makers.
The power inside is God’s and God’s alone.
Not anymore.
God be damned, Eben thinks.
“We are ready, Master,” Same-El says.
“Good, my brother. When the Aksumite line survives the end of ends, you will be remembered among our greatest heroes. Both of you.” He looks the men in the eyes, embraces them, kisses them, smiles with them, and then helps them prepare.
The Nethinim untie and remove their bejeweled breastplates. Ithamar hangs his on a peg and Eben takes Same-El’s and pulls it over his torso, a rectangle of 12 wooden blocks attached to one another with iron metal hoops, each set with a colorful and smooth oval stone, all of them different hues.
The Breastplate of Aaron.
Same-El ties it tight for Eben.
It—plus his faith—will be his only protection.
Ithamar pours holy water from a pitcher into a wooden bowl and kneels. Same-El kneels next to him. They take turns washing their hands and arms and faces, their dark, wet skin reflecting the pinkish light in swirling patterns. Eben’s head is already spinning.
He envies these two men, even if they do end up being sacrificed.
No, because they will end up being sacrificed.
They remove their robes and hang them on the wall and stand, naked, anticipating what is to come.
Eben hugs and kisses each of them one last time. The two men face each other and slap their own thighs until they are red. When they are finished, they slap their stomachs and their chests. They grab each other by the shoulders and yell at each other the names of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers and their fathers’ fathers’ fathers. They invoke Moses and Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and ask for forgiveness.
Eben asks the same for both blessed men.
Finally, without looking at Eben, Same-El and Ithamar smile and turn toward the curtain. Holding hands, they go forward. Eben turns away and walks to the hatch and presses his knees into it and closes his eyes and covers his ears and waits.
It takes one minute and 16 seconds for the screaming to commence.
It is not joyful or enlightened. It is terrifying. These are two strong men, some of the strongest in the entire line, and they are crying like babes being torn by wild beasts from their mothers’ breasts.
Seventeen seconds later the air at Eben’s back becomes hot, and he can hear the curtain whipping and snapping like an untethered sail in a tempest.
The screams continue, they are desperate, tearing, shrill, final.
Then the light comes, so bright the lids of his squinting eyes turn as orange as the sun, and Eben is slammed into the wall by a heavy wind and he cannot move. His nose is smashed against the wall, which heats up like a stovetop, and he smells his own flesh cooking and hears his own heart beating faster than it’s ever beaten, like it’s going to sing out of his chest, and he too is going to die.
And still the screams, weaving the horror together like a searing thread.
Then darkness, and the air sucks back like a vacuum and the curtain’s metal rings clatter and clank and Eben, eyes still closed, tears freezing in air suddenly turned frigid, has to step back with one foot and then the other to steady himself. His robes pull toward the ark so hard that he thinks they will be torn from his body, or will spread out around him like fabric wings and fly him backward into the howling void.
A full three minutes and 49 seconds after it began, there is silence.
Stillness.
Eben peels his hands from his ears. They are clammy, his fingers stiff, as if he has been gripping something with all his might for hours upon hours. He tries to open his eyes, but they’re crusted shut. He digs his fingers at them, wiping away crystals of ice and gobs of yellow, congealed tears.
He blinks. He can see.
He snaps his fingers. He can hear.
He stamps his feet. He can feel.
The pinkish light of the room is unchanged. He looks at the shiny wall, only centimeters from his face, striped with gold and silver. It is unchanged. He can see his splotchy, imperfect reflection there, just as before.
He breathes.
Breathes and breathes.
Holds his breath and turns.
The room is utterly undisturbed. The lamp hangs from the ceiling on its slender rod. The low gilt table, with the bowl and the pitcher, is on his right. The robes hang on the pegs on the wall. The jeweled breastplate from antiquity that Ithamar wore hangs there too.
The curtain is as before—straight and bright and clean.
“Same-El? Ithamar?” Eben asks.
No answer.
He steps forward.
He reaches the curtain.
He drags his fingertips across it.
He closes his eyes and pushes his hand through the parting and walks in.
He opens his eyes.
And there it is. The Ark of the Covenant, golden, two and one half cubits long, one and one half cubits high, one and one half cubits deep, the mercy seat lifted free and leaning against the wall, the cherubim on top facing each other in timeless reproach.
The only sign that Same-El and Ithamar ever existed are two fist-sized piles of gray ash on the floor, precisely two meters apart.
Eben stands on his tiptoes and tries to see past the leading edge of the ark and into the bottom.
But he cannot see.
He edges closer.
And there. Inside, a ceramic urn coiled in copper wire. A stone tablet without any markings. A wrinkle of black silk pushed into one corner.
And in the middle of the ark two black cobras, looped over each other in a figure eight, sleek and vigorous, chasing and nibbling at each other’s tails.
Eben reaches down and touches the edge of the ark. He is not smitten, not blinded, not driven mad.
He pushes his knees against it and leans forward and grabs a snake in each hand. As soon as his flesh touches theirs, they harden and straighten and transform into wooden rods, each a meter long, and each tipped with a metal snake head on one end and a golden spike on the other.
The Rod of Aaron.
The Rod of Moses.
He slips one under his sash.
He holds the other.
Eben kneels and reaches for the tablet and turns it over with a thump.
It is blank on both sides.
Eben huffs and his heart feels hollow. This is the covenant with the Makers.
A blank stone tablet.
Curse them.
He doesn’t dare open the urn, which is without doubt the manna machine. The Aksumites will guard it—having a machine that potentially makes food might come in handy after the Event, so long as they can figure out how to work it—but they don’t need it yet.
All that’s left is the crumpled pile of black silk.
Eben pushes the silk aside with the cane, and there—there it is.
He leans over and picks it up. Turns it over in his hand. Runs his fingers over it.
He shakes his head in disbelief.
Knock-knock.
Someone is at the hatch.
Eben spins and crosses the Kodesh Hakodashim. He opens the latch and lets the person on the other side push it inward.
Hilal pokes his disfigured head into the chamber. “Well, Master? I couldn’t just sit there and wait.”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Is it open?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Same-El and Ithamar.”
“Did they survive?”
“No.”
“God take them.”
“Yes, my Player. God take them.”
“And what was in it?”
“These,” Eben says, indicating the snakelike rods. “They are living weapons. The rods of Aaron and Moses, the consuming snakes, the prime creators, the ouroboros. Our symbols of uncorruption, the hunters of Ea. Even if our line never finds the Corrupted One, the canes will serve you well in Endgame.”
“And what else? What of the covenant?”
“There is no covenant, Player. The tablet was blank.”
Hilal looks to the side. Through clenched teeth he asks, “Was there more, Master?”
“Yes, Player. And that is what you won’t believe.”
Eben holds it out and Hilal looks.
It is a slender sheath of black metal the size of a large smartphone, curved slightly and etched in one corner with a glyph.
