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

gasped—he hadn’t heard me approach. He leapt over a corpse and grabbed my shoulder, drawing me back. I shook his arm free, but allowed him to lead me away from the bodies.

“Lev, I’m sorry. But you can’t know. Not yet.”

I glared at Shimon. He knew. If Shimon owed his life to my father, then he owed me an answer.

Uriel’s voice was softer. “Lev, when you returned to me, you said that where I went, you would go. I was moved by the strength of your promise and held it as binding, though you are not yet of age. But even I did not foresee where it would lead. You offered your life this morning, even if it was spared.

“I have served the Holy One faithfully my entire life, but I am an old man. There are more soldiers seeking me, and even if I were not pursued, the time to lie with my fathers is drawing near. It matters not how my soul will leave my body, in sleep or in battle. But your life is ahead of you. I release you from your oath.”

Would my master dismiss me rather than tell me the truth?

“The journey to Judah is now too dangerous for you to attempt. Even the smallest passes will be watched. If you wish to return to your aunt, tell her it is with my blessing and she will welcome you home. Your uncle will help you raise a flock of your own. No one will seek your blood. You will marry and build a family. Grow old.

“Or you may continue with me. We will travel fast, eat little, fight if we must. If you go where I go, it may be to the grave before the week is done.”

I stared down at the bodies of the massacred prophets on the ground. If I hadn’t been there, Uriel could have lain among them. I raised my eyes up to my master’s. “Where you go, I will go.”

Shimon shuffled next to me. Uriel continued to hold my gaze. “So be it.” He bent his knees and brought his eyes in line with mine. “Then it’s time to hear the truth about your father. The truth about yourself.”

Shimon’s mouth dropped open. Uriel held up his hand and it snapped shut. “I have hidden things until now because knowledge can be dangerous. But at this point, you could hardly be in more danger—now ignorance is a liability.” The old prophet held out the handle of my knife. “I saw your father’s courage in you today. Take the knife.”

I asked for the truth, but hadn’t expected to get it. My fingers trembled as I grasped the weapon. It felt warm in my palms, having absorbed the heat of Uriel’s hands.

“Do you recognize the imprint?”

I traced a finger over the insignia on the hilt. How many times had I wondered about its meaning since leaving home? I saw it in my dreams. My vision grew blurry as I focused on the milky white stone, but no new insight arose. I shrugged. “Claws of some sort?”

Uriel cocked his head to inspect the insignia, then emitted a short, nasal laugh—the first sound of mirth I’d heard in days. “True, it does look like claws now, doesn’t it? Much time has passed since I saw it first. Yes, some definition has been lost, but the image is whole. Not three fingers, five. The thumb, two fingers held together, a gap, then two fingers held together. Does that help you?”

“No, Master.”

“The kohanim, the priests of the Holy One, hold their hands forward just so when they bless the people. This knife was used by the kohanim for offerings in the Holy Temple. Your father was a kohen.” Uriel drew my eyes up from the knife with a gentle touch on my chin. “Which makes you a kohen as well. You were born a priest of the Holy One.”

Uriel’s words broke through my exhaustion. Fragmented images whirled in my mind. My special bread—my aunt always gave me the first piece of bread. Hadn’t Uriel done the same when I came to the gathering, making sure that a portion was always set aside for me? Uncle Menachem taught me that the kohen receives the first bread and the first fruits—why had I never made the connection?

Yonaton stood at the edge of the trees, grasping an armful of branches, watching us closely. When the two of us tried to help care for the fallen prophets, only I was rebuked, not him. “Is that why I can’t help with the bodies?”

“Yes, you are forbidden contact with the dead.”

How many times had I pestered my uncle about my father’s land? His response was always the same, that my inheritance had been lost—always using the word inheritance, never once mentioning my father’s land or even his tribe. “And this is why I have no land?”

“The kohanim are from the tribe of Levi, who received the service of the Holy One as their inheritance. They have no share in the land.”

I shook my head, then raised the knife between us. “And this?”

“That knife was used by your ancestors to slaughter offerings in the Holy Temple.”

“Shimon said it was for peace, not war.”

“Indeed it is. When the hearts of the kohanim are pure and the people are devoted to their service, there is peace in the land.”

“Why was it dangerous for me to know what I am?”

“Did your uncle teach you about the splitting of the Kingdom?”

“Yes, but only when I went home after the wedding.” I wanted it to be clear that I hadn’t understood about the Golden Calf when we were in Beit El. “He said that Yeravaum feared that the people would return to the Temple, so he created the calves and commanded the people to worship the Holy One through them.”

“Yes, a new form of our old sin in the desert. The annual pilgrimage to the calves will be in one week, at the full moon, exactly one month after Israel should have gone up to the Temple for Sukkot. And did Menachem tell you that not all the people accepted this substitution?”

I shook my head.

“The tribe of Levi were the most adamant in their refusal. They rejected the calf in the wilderness and were not going to bow to it here in the Land. The kohanim had a double measure of their tribe’s indignation.”

My chest filled with pride at my tribe’s defiance.

“When Yeravaum replaced the Temple, he replaced the kohanim as well. New altars meant new priests, an honor bestowed upon one of the most powerful families in the Kingdom, assuring their loyalty to Yeravaum. Most of the kohanim in the northern Kingdom of Israel fled south to Judah. Only a few stayed, and their very presence provoked Yeravaum and the kings who came after him.”

“Why?”

“Because the Holy One anointed Aharon and his sons as our priests for all time. The only way to serve the Holy One at the altar is to be a descendant of Aharon. As long as his descendants lived in the land, they were a perpetual challenge to Yeravaum and his mock priests.”

“So the remaining kohanim were hunted down?”

“No. Most went about their lives quietly. They became craftsmen, shepherds, teachers of the young. Yeravaum saw no reason to disturb the peace by dealing harshly with them.”

“So why was my father different?”

“Your father refused to flee or conceal his identity. He wouldn’t let the people forget. He traveled the Kingdom, taught about the Holy One, and roused the nation to correct its ways.”

Pride blazed through me again at this new image of my father, strong and defiant, though I now knew how much his defiance had cost him—and me. “But you also do this. You were never hunted, were you?” I surveyed the soldier’s bodies piled next to the ruined house, “…at least until now.”

“True. Yeravaum had no desire to break the connection between the people and the Holy One. Just the opposite: he told the people that worshiping his calves was the surest path to cling to the Holy One. Opposing the prophets would have destroyed this illusion, so we remained free to live and teach in the land.”

I stared at the severed head of the last soldier to die, and suddenly the battle made more sense. “But Izevel wants to destroy the connection between the people and the Holy One. She wants them to worship the Baal.”

“Indeed.”

I wiped my eyes with the palms of my hands, feeling suddenly like a little boy again. But I couldn’t give myself over to my feelings yet—there was more I needed to understand first. “Was I never to know who I am?” I searched my master’s eyes.

Uriel ran his fingers through his grizzled, white beard. “That was to be a question of how you matured. Had you grown into a man who likes to avoid trouble, like the kohanim who abandoned their roots, I would never have burdened you with this knowledge.”

I squinted at Uriel. “But how could you know which direction I’d take?”

“When we met under the fig tree, I was a stranger to you, but you were well known to me. I have walked the land for over fifty years—almost always alone.” Uriel’s lips rose in a half smile. “Your father was a rare friend; I would not abandon his son. After he died, I visited your uncle whenever my path brought me close to Levonah. It was I who gave you that kinnor, for music is a channel for the soul. I saw early on that you possessed a rare spirit—a spirit like your father’s—but I still needed to know you better. The past can be such a heavy burden. I needed to be sure you could bear it.

“That’s why I hired you to accompany me to the gathering. There I was to make my final decision: to leave you in ignorance and allow you to sink into the people of the Kingdom, or to smuggle you to Judah once you came of age. There you could learn the ways of the kohanim, and one day serve in the Holy Temple. Your uncle knew this, of course, but he long ago yielded to my desire for secrecy.”

“But, Master, I thought you hired me for my music?”

“Your music is beautiful, Lev—it is an expression of the spirit of which I speak. But I didn’t need a musician badly enough to take you from your uncle’s flock. I sought to know you better. And you needed to taste your father’s world before facing the choice: whether to remain here a shepherd or join me on the journey to Judah to learn the way of your tribe.”

For years, I grappled with the prospect of a life I hadn’t chosen and didn’t desire. Yet, all that time, another option lay hidden beneath the surface, waiting for me to take hold of it. Unlike the paths that Zim and Daniel had encouraged me to walk, this path was destined for me from birth; it was the path my father had walked, and his father before him, all the way back to Aharon the first high priest. This realization broke through my last restraint. Tears coursed through the filth on my face, but I didn’t wipe them away. The truth ripped open an old wound, but I preferred pain to the numbness I felt during all those years of mystery.

“And what now, Master?”

“Everything has changed. My days of walking the Kingdom are over. We are quarry now—we’d be hunted down within days. The watch on the passes will be doubled as well—the way to Judah is sealed.”

Any sense of safety brought on by that morning’s victory slipped away. “Where will we go?”

“I don’t know. Despite the delay, I must seek vision. Please play for me.”

The ancient prophet’s knees cracked as he lowered himself to the blood-stained ground. He closed his eyes and dropped his head between his knees, but there was no music. The