The Lamp of Darkness, - [any book recommendations txt] 📗

are you packing for?” Zim asked as he and Daniel walked into the cave. “Does this have anything to do with the King’s servant and the mysterious request Raphael was talking about? Lev, did you overhear anything when you brought them their wine?”

“Yes.” Yonaton’s voice cracked with excitement. “Ovadia came to get us to play at the wedding.”

“We’re going to play for the King?” Zim snatched up his drum with one hand and pounded it with the other. “I knew it! I knew my moment would come!”

Daniel sat down, his forehead furrowed in thought. “If that’s all he came for, we should be leaving already.”

“Well—” Yonaton began, but I cut him off.

“Yosef didn’t want us to go. They were still discussing it when I left.” Yonaton shot me a glance that the other two missed, but I’d overheard a private conversation; it wasn’t my place to tell Zim and Daniel everything that I’d heard. Somehow telling Yonaton felt different.

Zim turned to Daniel. “You don’t sound so excited.”

“I’ve played for the King before. As soon as he came out of mourning for his father, he celebrated his coronation and gathered musicians from around the land. But don’t think we’re going to play before the King as we play before the prophets. There will be many musicians there. We may not even see the King.”

“I’ve never even been to Shomron.” Zim tapped the edge of his drum with his fingertips. “The King keeps a small group of musicians to play in the palace.” He winked in my direction. “You never know what could happen…”

Ovadia spoke with the masters until the sun burned a fiery gold in the western sky. When they emerged from the cave, Uriel sent word that we would leave in the morning.

“I’m going to tell my parents,” Yonaton told me. “Do you want to come? They want to meet you anyway.”

I nodded and laid my kinnor on my sleeping mat, but when we stepped out, we saw one of the servants climbing the path toward us. “Master Uriel wishes to speak with you, Lev.” His tone was soft, with none of the brutishness of the cook I spoke to earlier in the day.

“Me?”

“Yes, he awaits you in his cave.”

I waved goodbye to Yonaton and followed the white-robed servant down the trail. As we turned on one of the switchbacks on the path, I noticed a puncture in his right ear; not a piercing of the lobe, but a hole in the ear itself large enough to see through. Only one thing could have mangled him in that way. I shuddered at the thought, a motion that was not lost upon the servant.

“You are staring at my ear?”

I turned red, but the man’s smile didn’t waver. “Does that mean—?”

“That when my first service was complete, I chose not to go free. Yes, I am a slave until the Yovel…if it ever comes. Forever, probably.”

“And your master…?”

“Master Yosef stood me up against a door and drove an awl through my ear, yes.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mark of bondage. “But you could have been free.”

“Free to do what? Go back to being a thief?” His smile grew broader, showing no signs of shame. “We all serve, Lev. Before I served my appetites. Now I serve a worthy master.”

When we reached Uriel’s cave, the servant gestured to me to enter alone. Uriel sat in the same spot I had seen him earlier that day. He waved me toward the stool opposite him. I sat, my chest suddenly tight. “You heard quite a bit today.”

I nodded, my eyes on the table. Was he upset that I lit the lamps so slowly?

“There is something on your mind, Lev. You may speak.”

“I was surprised you let me hear as much as I did,” I said quietly.

“As was I.”

So, Uriel had wanted me there. Then why did I still feel the pressure in my chest? “Why did you let me stay?”

“My heart told me I should.” I raised my eyes as far as Uriel’s beard. “I can see the question on your face; you want to know the real reason why.”

I nodded in response.

“It began with Raphael—such an unusual way to receive a prophecy.”

“It didn’t seem very different from when I saw you, just more intense.”

“True, it is not at all unusual for a navi to receive a message for others. But nevi’im are rarely given messages to deliver to other nevi’im. If the Holy One wished to send me a message, why not send it to me directly? This is the first time I’ve ever received a prophecy through another prophet.” Uriel bent his head forward, and his eyes met mine. “Questions are the gateway to wisdom. You may ask.”

What did he want from me? I dropped my eyes to the table again and asked the next logical question. “Why do you think you received the prophecy this way?”

“I wondered the same. It could be that the end of my life is drawing near. Nevi’im often lose their navua near the end of their lives. Or it could be that the Holy One has decreed that I no longer deserve navua.” His right hand raked through his beard and held it. “But my heart tells me that neither was the cause of today’s events.”

“What then?”

“I believe that the prophecy was not directed to me alone.”

“Then why didn’t you tell Master Yosef about it? Wouldn’t that have been easier than arguing?”

“Yes, it would. And since Raphael spoke publicly, I could have shared his words if I desired. But the fact that the message was not addressed to Yosef gave me pause. I was told to heed Ovadia’s request, but he was not. He was right to rely on his own understanding.”

“But you said the message wasn’t intended only for you. If not for Master Yosef, then who else?”

Uriel paused until I glanced up. “I believe that it was for you.”

A shiver passed through my body. “Me?”

Uriel hesitated, as if weighing his words. “I noticed Ovadia looking intently at the musicians when he arrived. He clearly had an interest in the four of you.”

Even if that were the case, the prophecy could just as easily have been for one of the others. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Uriel replied, but said no more.

I felt blood rising to my cheeks and reached under my tunic for my father’s knife, which I now kept with me at all times. The weapon hit the table with a dull thud. “It has something to do with this, doesn’t it?”

Uriel picked up the sheathed knife with a faraway look in his eye. At that moment, I was certain he’d seen the knife before. “Yes.” He gazed directly at me but offering no more information.

“What are you hiding from me?”

Uriel sighed. “I understand how difficult this must be, but it is not yet safe to tell you all that I know.”

“If it’s my safety, shouldn’t I be able to decide—”

“No!”

My head jerked back at his sharp word.

Uriel’s eyes glinted as he leaned across the table. “When I took you with me, I promised your uncle I would look after you. I question his judgment in giving you this knife. I can only conclude that he is unaware of its significance. You heard what Ovadia said—we are entering dangerous times!”

Uriel lowered his forehead into his hands, as though needing their help to carry its weight. When he lifted it, there was a softer expression in his eyes. “Much as I would like to protect you, Raphael’s prophecy shows that there is a greater will than my own involved. I must…I will allow events to take their course.”

The prophet met my eyes again. “Do the others know your father’s name?”

I sat up at the question. “Only Yonaton and Shimon, the one with the scars.”

“Good. From now on, call yourself Lev ben Menachem. Tell Yonaton so he won’t be surprised, but instruct him not to tell the others. I’m not concerned about Shimon.”

Uriel rose. “Be careful in Shomron. Darkness is rising in the Kingdom—I have felt it building for some time. Trust your heart. If something feels wrong to you, it probably is. And keep your eyes open. I won’t be in Shomron to see for myself, so I’m counting on you to be my eyes and tell me everything when you return.” Uriel walked me to the mouth of the cave, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Perhaps it is best if you leave the knife here with me?”

I shook my head—it was my only inheritance.

“Very well, take it with you, but show it to no one.”

“Put your gear on the donkeys,” Ovadia told the four of us the next morning. “We’ll be riding the horses.”

The prophets lent us two donkeys for the journey, and I hitched my sleeping roll and kinnor to the smaller one. “You can ride with me,” Ovadia said. I stepped onto a large boulder and mounted behind him.

Uriel walked toward us from one of the caves, and Ovadia kicked his horse forward, out of earshot of the soldiers.

“I have given more thought to your question,” Uriel said.

“You haven’t changed your mind?”

“No, but there is something more I want to tell you.”

“Should we speak privately?”

“There is no need, it is just a story.”

This didn’t seem to me like the time for stories, but Ovadia didn’t appear surprised.

“A fox once walked along the banks of a river. Looking down, he saw fish swimming frantically back and forth. Why do you rush about from place to place? he asked them.

“We are fleeing the nets of the men, they replied.

“Come up onto the land with me, said the fox. Here you will be safe from the nets of the men, and we can live together as my ancestors lived with your ancestors.

“You are supposed to be the cleverest of animals, replied the fish, but you talk like a fool. If we are afraid in the water where we know how to live, how much more is there to fear on dry land where we will surely die?”

Uriel paused. Ovadia said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Both paths before you are perilous. When forced to choose, remember that the fish may die even in the water, but leaving it brings total destruction.”