17

UNCOVER your eyes and look at me,' said the Lord.  "Instantly, aware that this might mean my total obliteration, that all might have been folly and misunderstanding, I obeyed.

"The radiance had become uniform, glorious yet tolerable, and in the very midst of it, broadcast in it, I saw distinctly a countenance such as my own. I cannot say that it was a human face. Countenance, person, expression¡ªthis is what I beheld, and this Highly Personal Countenance was regarding me directly and fully.

"It was so beautiful that I couldn't imagine moving or ever turning away from it, but then it began to brighten, it began to force me to blink and to struggle not to cover my eyes rather than imperil my vision forever.

"The light then became muted; it contracted; it became bearable and engulfing, but not blinding to me. And I stood, trembling, very glad I had not reached to cover my face.

"Memnoch,' God said. 'You have done well. You have brought souls from Sheol who are worthy of Heaven; you have increased the joy and the bliss of Heaven; you have done well.'

"I uttered a thanks which was in fact an anthem of adoration, repeating the obvious, that God had made all these souls and that in His mercy He had allowed them to come to Him.

"This makes you very happy, does it not?' He asked.

"Only if it makes you happy, Lord,' I said, which was a bit of a lie.

"Rejoin the angels, Memnoch,' He said. 'You are forgiven for becoming flesh and blood without my permission, and forgiven for having slept with the Daughters of Men. You are upheld in your hopes for the souls of Sheol. Leave me now and do whatever it is you wish, but interfere no more with Nature, or with humankind, since you insist they are not part of Nature, and on which point you are wrong.'

"Lord¡ª' I started timidly.

"Yes???'

"Lord, these souls I brought from Sheol, why, they are less than one one-hundredth of the souls in Sheol; they probably are less than one one-hundredth of souls who have disintegrated or vanished since the beginning of the world. Lord, Sheol is filled with confusion and misunderstanding. These were but the elect.'

"I am supposed to be surprised by this information? How could I not know it?' He asked.

"Surely, Lord, you'll let me go back to Sheol and to try to advance those souls who haven't reached the level of Heaven. Surely you'll let me try to purge them of whatever keeps them unworthy of heavenly bliss.'

"Why?'

"Lord, there are millions lost to you for every million saved.'

"You know that I know this, do you not?'

"Lord, have mercy on them! Have mercy on the humans of the Earth who seek through countless rituals to reach you, know you, and appease you.'

"Why?'

"I didn't answer. I was dumbstruck. I thought. And then I said, 'Lord, do you not care for these souls who are drifting in confusion?  Who suffer so in darkness?'

"'Why should I?' He asked.

"Again, I took my time. It was imperative that this answer count.

But in the interval he spoke:

"Memnoch, can you count for me all of the stars? Do you know their names, their orbits, their destinies in Nature? Can you give me a rough calculation, Memnoch, of the number of grains of sand in the sea?'

"No, Lord, I can't.'

"Throughout my Creation, there are creatures whose spawn numbers in the thousands, of which only a tiny portion survive¡ªfishes of the sea, turtles of the sea, winged insects of the air. A hundred, a million even, of one species may be born under the arc of one day's sun, with only a handful to survive and reproduce. Don't you know this?'

"Yes, Lord, I know. I knew in ages past. I knew when the animals were evolved. I knew.'

"So what is it to me that only a handful of souls come to the Gates of Heaven? Maybe I will send you to Sheol again, in Time. I will not say.'

"Lord, humankind is sentient and suffering!'

"Must we argue again about Nature? Humankind is my creation, Memnoch, and its development whether you know it or not follows my Laws.'

"But, Lord, everything under the sun dies eventually, and these souls have the potential to live forever! They are outside the cycle! They are made of invisible will and knowledge. Lord, surely they were meant within the Laws to come to Heaven, how could it not be? I am asking you, Lord, I am asking you to tell me, because as much as I love you, I don't understand.'

"Memnoch, the invisible and the willful are embodied in my angels and they obey my laws.'

"Yes, Lord, but they don't die. And you talk to us, and you reveal yourself to us, and you love us, and you let us see things.'

"You don't think the beauty of Creation reveals my light to Humankind? You don't think these souls, which you yourself have brought here, have not developed out of a perception of the glory of all that has been made?'

"Many more could come, Lord, with just a little help. The number here now is so small. Lord, the lower animals, what can they conceive of that they cannot have? I mean, the lion conceives of the meat of the gazelle and he gets it, does he not? Human souls have conceived of Almighty God and are longing for Him.'

"You've proved that to me already,' he said. 'You've proved it to all of Heaven.'

"But these were a few! Lord, if you were only flesh and blood, if you had only gone down as I did¡ª'

"'Memnocn.'

"No, Lord, forgive me, but I can't deny you my finest efforts, and my finest efforts at logic tell me that if you went down and became flesh and blood as I did, you would better know these Creatures whom you think you know but you don't!'

"No answer.

"Lord, your light doesn't penetrate human flesh. It mistakes it for animal flesh and always has! Lord, you may know all but you don't know every tiny thing! You can't, or you couldn't leave these souls languishing in Sheol in agony. And you could not allow the suffering of men and women on Earth to go without context. I don't believe it! I don't believe you would do it! I don't believe it.'

"Memnoch, for me it is only necessary to say something once.'

"I didn't answer.

"I'm being gentle with you,' He said.

"Yes, you are, but you are wrong, and in that, too, you are wrong, for you would hear your anthems of praise sung over and over without end and forever, and Lord! These souls could come to you and sing those anthems.'

"I don't need the anthems, Memnoch,' He said.

"Then why do we sing?'

"You of all my angels are the only one who accuses me! Who does not trust in me. Why, these souls you brought from Sheol trust in me as you do not! That was your standard for selecting them! That they trusted in the Wisdom of God.'

"I couldn't be silenced:

"I knew something when I was flesh and blood, Lord, which upheld all that I had suspected before, and which confirms all I have seen since. What can I do, Lord, tell you lies? Speak things with my tongue that are flat-out falsehoods? Lord, in humankind you have made something that even you do not fully comprehend! There can be no other explanation, for if there is, then there is no Nature and there are no Laws.'

"Get out of my sight, Memnoch. Go down to Earth and get away from me and interfere with Nothing, do you hear?'

"Put it to the test, Lord. Become flesh and blood as I did. You who can do anything, sheath yourself in flesh¡ª' "Silence, Memnoch.'

"Or if you do not dare to do that, if it is unworthy of the Creator to understand in every cell his Creation, then silence all the anthems of Angels and Men! Silence them, since you say you do not need them, and observe then what your Creation means to you!'

"I cast you out, Memnoch!' He declared, and in an instant all of Heaven had reappeared around me, the entire bene ha elohim and with it the millions of souls of the saved, and Michael and Raphael were standing before me, watching in horror as I was forced backwards right out of the gates and into the whirlwind.

"You are merciless to your Creations, my Lord!' I roared as loud as I could over the din of distressful singing. 'Those men and women made in your own image are right to despise you, for nine-tenths of them would be better off if they had never been born!' "

Memnoch stopped.

He made a little frown, just a tiny very perfectly symmetrical scowl for a moment, and then lowered his head as if listening to something. Then slowly he turned to me.

I held his gaze. "It's just what you would have done, isn't it?" he asked.

"God help me," I said, "I really don't know."

The landscape was changing. As we looked at each other, the world around us was filled with new sounds. I realized there were humans in the vicinity, men with flocks of goats and sheep, and far off in the distance I could see the walls of a town, and above on a hill, yet another small settlement. Indeed, we were in a populated world now, ancient, but not that far from our own.

I knew these people couldn't see us, or hear us. I didn't have to be told.

Memnoch continued to stare at me, as if asking me something, and I didn't know what it was. The sun was beating down full on both of us. I realized my hands were moist with blood sweat and I reached up and wiped the sweat from my forehead, and looked at the blood on my hand. He was covered with a faint shimmer, but nothing more than that. He continued to stare at me.

"What happened!" I asked. "Why don't you tell me! What happened? Why don't you go on?"

"You know damned good and well what happened," he said.  "Look down at your clothes now. They're robes, and better suited for the desert. I want you to come there, just over those hills ... with me."

He stood up, and I at once followed him. We were in the Holy Land, there was no question. We passed dozens upon dozens of small groups of people, fishermen near a small town on the edge of the sea, others tending sheep or goats, or driving small flocks towards nearby settlements or walled enclosures.

Everything looked distinctly familiar. Disturbingly familiar, quite beyond deja vu or intimations of having lived here before. Familiar as if hardwired into my brain. And I refer to everything now¡ªeven a naked man with crooked legs, hollering and raving, as he passed us, not seeing us, one hand bent on a stick of a cane.

Beneath the layers of grit that covered all, I was surrounded by forms and styles and manners of behavior I knew intimately¡ªfrom Scripture, from engraving, from embellished illustration, and from film enactment. This was¡ªin all its stripped-down, burning-hot glory¡ªa sacred as well as familiar terrain.

We could see people standing before caves in which they lived high on the hills. Here and there little groups sat in the shade beneath a copse, dozing, talking. A distant pulse came from the walled cities. The air was filled with sand. Sand blew into my nostrils and clung to my lips and my hair.

Memnoch had no wings. His robes were soiled and so were mine.

I think we wore linen; it was light and the air passed through it.  Our robes were long and unimportant. Our skin, our forms, were unchanged.

The sky was vividly blue, and the sun glared down upon me as it might on any being. The sweat felt alternately good and unbearable.

And I thought, fleetingly, how at any other time I might wonder at the sun alone, the marvel of the sun denied to the Children of Night¡ªbut all this time I had not even thought of it, not once, because having seen the Light of God, the Sun had ceased to be that Light for me.

We walked up into the rocky hills, climbing steep paths, and crossing over outcroppings of rock and ragged tree, and finally there appeared below and before us a great patch of unwatered sand, burning and shifting slowly in comfortless wind.

Memnoch came to a halt at the very threshold of this desert, so to speak, the place where we would leave the firm ground, rocky and uncomfortable as it was, and pass into the soft drudgery of the sand.

I caught up with him, having fallen a little behind. He put his left arm around me, and his fingers spread out firm and large against my shoulder. I was very glad he did, because I was feeling a predictable apprehension; in fact, a dread was building in me, a premonition as bad as any I'd ever known.

"After He cast me out," Memnoch said, "I wandered." His eyes were on the desert and what seemed the barren, blazing rocky cliffs in the distance, hostile as the desert itself.

"I roamed the way you have often roamed, Lestat. Wingless, and brokenhearted, I drifted along through the cities and nations of the earth, over continents and wastes. Sometime or other I can tell you all of it, if you wish. It's of no consequence now.

"Let me say only what is of consequence, that I did not dare to make myself visible or known to Humankind but rather hid amongst them, invisible, not daring to assume flesh for fear of angering God again; and not daring to join the human struggle under any disguise, for fear of God, and fear of what evil I might bring on humans. On account of the same fears ... I didn't return to Sheol. I wanted in no way to increase the sufferings of Sheol. God alone could free those souls. What hope could I give them?

"But I could see Sheol, I could see its immensity, and I felt the pain of the souls there, and wondered at the new and intricate and ever-changing patterns of confusion created by mortals as they departed one faith or sect or creed after another for that miserable margin of gloom.

"Once a proud thought did come to me¡ªthat if I did penetrate Sheol, I might instruct the souls there so thoroughly that they themselves might transform it, create in it forms invented by hope rather than hopelessness, and some garden might be made of it in time.  Certainly the elect, the millions I had taken to Heaven, they had transformed their portion of the place. But then what if I failed at this, and only added to the chaos? I didn't dare. I didn't dare, out of fear of God and fear of my own inability to accomplish such a dream.

"I formulated many theories in my wanderings but I did not change my mind on anything which I believed or felt or had spoken to God. In fact, I prayed to Him often, though He was utterly silent, telling Him how much I continued to believe that He had deserted His finest creation. And sometimes out of weariness I only sung His praises. Sometimes I was silent. Looking, hearing ... watching....

"Memnoch, the Watcher, the Fallen Angel.

"Little did I know my argument with Almighty God was only begun. But at a certain time, I found myself wandering back to the very valleys which I had first visited, and where the first cities of men had been built.

"This land for me was the land of beginnings, for though great peoples had sprung up in many nations, it was here that I had lain with the Daughters of Men. And here that I had learnt something in the flesh which I still held that God did not Himself know.

"Now, as I came to this place, I came into Jerusalem, which by the way is only six or seven miles west of here, where we now stand.

"And the times were immediately known to me, that the Romans governed the land, that the Hebrews had suffered a long and terrible captivity, and that those tribes going back to the very first settlements here¡ªwho had believed in the One God¡ªwere now under the foot of the polytheists who did not take their legends with any seriousness.

"And the Tribes of Monotheists, themselves, were divided on many issues, with some Hebrews being strict Pharisees, and others Sadducees, and still others having sought to make pure communities in caves in those hills beyond.

"If there was one feature which made the times remarkable to me¡ªthat is, truly different from any other¡ªit was the might of the Roman Empire, which stretched farther than any empire of the West which I had ever witnessed, and remained somehow in ignorance of the Great Empire of China, as if that were not of the same world.

"Something drew me to this spot, however, and I knew it. I sensed a presence here that was not as strong as a summons; but it was as if someone were crying out to me to come here, and yet would not use the full power of his voice. I must search, I must wander. Maybe this thing stalked and seduced me as I did you. I don't know.

"But I came here, and wandered Jerusalem, listening to what the tongues of men had to say.

"They spoke of the prophets and holy men of the wilderness, of arguments over the law and purification and the will of God. They spoke of Holy Books and Holy Traditions. They spoke of men going out to be 'baptized' in water so as to be 'saved' in the eyes of God.

"And they spoke of a man who had only lately gone into the wilderness after his baptism, because at the moment that he had stepped into the River Jordan and the water had been poured over him, the skies had opened above this man, and Light had been seen from God.

"Of course one could hear stories like this all over the world. It was not unusual, except that it drew me. That this was my country; and I found myself as if directed, wandering out of Jerusalem to the east, into the wasteland, my keen angelic senses telling me that I was near to the presence of something mysterious, something that partook of the sacred in a way that an angel would know upon seeing, and a man might not. My reason rejected it, yet I walked on and on, in the heat of the day, wingless and invisible into the very wastes."

Memnoch drew me with him and we walked into the sand, which was not as deep as I had imagined, but was hot and full of little stones.  We moved on into canyons and up slopes and finally came to a little clearing of sorts where rocks had been gathered, as if others were wont to come here from time to time. It was as natural as the other place we had chosen to remain for so long.

A landmark in the desert, so to speak, a monument to something, perhaps.

I waited on tenterhooks for Memnoch to begin again. My uneasiness was growing. He slowed his pace until we stood well over a stone's throw from this little gathering of rocks.

"Closer and closer I came," he said, "to those markers there that you see, and with my angelic eyes, powerful as are yours, I spied from a long way off a single human man. But my eyes told me this was no human, that on the contrary this man was filled with the fire of God.

"I didn't believe it, and yet I walked on, closer and closer, unable to stop myself, and then stopped where we are now, staring at the figure who sat on that rock before me, looking up at me here.

"It was God! There was no question. He was sheathed in flesh, dark-skinned from the sun, dark-haired, and had the dark eyes of the desert people, but it was God! My God!

"And there he sat in this fleshly body, looking at me with human eyes, and the eyes of God, and I could see the Light totally filling Him and contained within Him and concealed from the outside world by His flesh as if it were the strongest membrane betwixt Heaven and Earth.

"If there was anything more terrible than this revelation, it was that He was looking at me and that He knew me and had been waiting for me, and that all I felt for Him, as I looked at Him, was love.

"We sing over and over again the songs of love. Is that the one song intended for all Creation?

"I looked at Him in terror for His mortal parts, His sunburnt flesh, His thirst, the emptiness of His stomach and the suffering of His eyes in the heat, for the presence of Almighty God inside Him, and I felt overwhelming love.

"So, Memnoch,' He said in a man's tongue and with a man's voice. 'I have come.'

"I fell on my face before Him. This was instinctive. I just lay there, reaching out and touching the very tip of the latchet of His sandal. I sighed and my body shook with the relief of loneliness, the attraction to God and the satisfaction of it, and I began a giddy weeping just to be near Him and see Him and I marveled at what this must mean.

"Stand up, come sit near me,' He said. 'I am a man now and I am God, but I am afraid.' His voice was indescribably moving to me, human yet filled with the wisdom of the divine. He spoke with the language and accents of Jerusalem.

"Oh, Lord, what can I do to ease your pain?' I said, for the pain was obvious. I stood up. 'What have you done and why?'

"I have done exactly what you tempted me to do, Memnoch,' He answered, and His face wore the most dreamlike and engaging smile.  'I have come into the flesh. Only I have done you one better. I was born of a mortal woman, planting the seed myself in her, and for thirty years, I have lived on this Earth as a child and as a man, and for long periods doubting¡ªno, even forgetting and ceasing to believe altogether¡ªthat I was really God!'

"I see you, I know you. You are the Lord my God,' I said. I was so struck by His face; by the recognition of Him in the mask of skin that covered the bones of His skull. In a shivering instant I recovered the exact feeling of when I'd glimpsed His countenance in the light, and I saw now the same expression in this human face. I went down on my knees. 'You are my God,' I said.

"I know that now, Memnoch, but you understand that I allowed myself to be submerged in the flesh utterly, to forget it, so that I could know what it means, as you said, to be human, and what humans suffer, and what they fear and what they long for, and what they are capable of learning either here or above. I did what you told me to do, and I did it better than you ever did it, Memnoch, I did it as God must do it, to the very extremity!'

"Lord, I can scarcely bear the sight of you suffering,' I said quickly, unable to rip my eyes off Him and yet dreaming of water and food for Him. 'Let me wipe the sweat from you. Let me get you water. Let me take you to it in an angelic instant. Let me comfort you and wash you and clothe you in a finery fit for God on Earth.'

"No,' He said. 'In those days when I thought myself mad, when I could scarce remember that I was God, when I knew I had yielded my omniscience deliberately in order to suffer and to know limitations, you might have persuaded me that that was the path. I might have seized upon your offer. Yes, make me a King. Let that be my way of revealing myself to them. But not now. I know Who I am and What I am, and I know What Will Happen. And you are right, Memnoch, there are souls in Sheol ready for Heaven and I myself will take them there. I have learnt what you tempted me to learn.'

"Lord, you're starving. You're suffering from terrible thirst. Here, turn these stones into bread by your power, that you can eat. Or let me get you food.'

"For once will you listen to me!' He said, smiling. 'Stop talking of food and drink. Who is human here? I am! You impossible adversary, you argumentative devil! Hush for now and listen. I am in the flesh. Have pity at least and let me speak my piece.' He laughed at me, His face full of kindness and sympathy.

"Here, come into the flesh, too, with me,' He said. 'Be my brother and sit beside me, Son of God and Son of God, and let us talk.'

"I did as He said at once, creating a body thoughtlessly that matched what you see now, as that was as natural to me as thinking was natural, and I gave myself a similar robe, and I realized that I was sitting on that rock there by His side. I was bigger than He was, and had not thought to reduce the scale of my limbs, and now I did it hastily until we were men of equal proportion, more or less. I was fully angelic in my form, and not hungry or thirsty or tired.

"How long have you been in this wilderness?' I asked. 'The people in Jerusalem say almost forty days.'

"He nodded. That's about the right number,' He answered me. 'And it's time now for me to begin my ministry, which will last three years. I will teach the great lessons that must be learnt for admission to Heaven¡ªawareness of Creation and the Understanding of its deliberate unfolding; an appreciation of its beauty and laws which makes possible an acceptance of suffering and seeming injustice and all forms of pain; I will promise a final glory to those who can attain understanding; to those who can surrender their souls to the understanding of God and what He has done. I will give that to Men and Women, which is precisely, I think, what you wanted me to do.'

"I didn't dare to answer him.

"Love, Memnoch, I have learnt to love them as you told me I would. I have learnt to love and cherish as men and women do, and I have lain with women and I have known that ecstasy, that spark of jubilation of which you spoke so eloquently when I could not conceive of wanting such a tiny thing.'

"I will talk more of love than any other subject. I will say things that men and women can twist and misunderstand. But love, that shall be the message. You convinced me and I have convinced myself that that is what elevates Human above animal, though animal is what Humankind is.'

"Do you mean to leave them with specific guidance as to how to love? As to how to stop war and come together in one form of worship¡ª'

"No, not at all. That would be an absurd intervention and would undo the entire grand scheme which I have put into motion. It would stop the dynamics of the unfolding of the universe.

"Memnoch, to me we human beings are all still part of Nature, as I said, only Humans are better than animals. It's a matter of degrees. Yes, humans cry out against suffering and they are conscious of it when they suffer, but in a sense they behave exactly like the lower animals, in that suffering improves them and drives them towards evolutionary advance. They are quick-witted enough to see its value, where the animals only learn to avoid suffering by instinct. Humans can actually be improved within one lifetime by suffering. But they are part of Nature still. The world will unfold as it always has, full of surprises. Some of those surprises will be horrid, and others wondrous, and some beautiful. But what is known for certain is that the world will continue to grow and Creation will continue to unfold.'

"Yes, Lord,' I said, 'but surely suffering is an evil thing.'

"What did I teach you, Memnoch, when you first came to me saying that decay was wrong, that death was wrong? Don't you understand the magnificence in human suffering?'

"No,' I said. 'I see the ruin of hope and love and family; the destruction of peace of mind; I see pain beyond endurance; I see man buckle under this, and fall into bitterness and hate.'

"You haven't looked deep enough, Memnoch. You are only an angel. You refuse to understand Nature, and that has been your way since the start.

"I will bring my light into Nature, through the flesh for three years. I will teach the wisest things I can know and say in this flesh-and-blood body and brain; and then I will die.'

"Die? Why do that? I mean, what do you mean, die? Your soul will leave¡ª' I broke off, uncertain.

"He smiled.

"You do have a soul, don't you, Lord? I mean, you are my God inside this Son of Man, and the light fills every particle of you, but you ... you don't have a soul, do you? You don't have a human soul!'

"Memnoch, these distinctions don't matter. I am God Incarnate.  How could I have a human soul? What is important is that I will remain in this body as it is tortured and slain; and my death will be evidence of my Love for those whom I have created and allowed to suffer so much. I will share their pain and know their pain.'

"Please, Lord, forgive me, but there seems to be something wrong with this whole idea.'

"Again, he seemed amused. His dark eyes were filled with a sympathetic and silent laughter. 'Wrong? What is wrong, Memnoch, that I shall take the form of the Dying God of the Wood, whom men and women have imagined and dreamed of and sung of since time immemorial, a dying god who symbolizes the very cycle of nature itself in which all that is born must die.

"I shall die, and I shall rise from the Dead, as that god has risen in every myth of the eternal return of the spring after winter in nations all over the world. I shall be the god destroyed and the god uplifted, only here it will happen literally in Jerusalem, not in ceremony, or with human substitutes. The Son of God himself shall fulfill the myths. I have chosen to sanctify those legends with my literal death.

"I shall walk out of the Tomb. My resurrection will confirm the eternal return of the spring after winter. It will confirm that in Nature all things that have evolved have their place.

"But Memnoch, it will be for my death that I am remembered. My death. It's going to be terrible. It won't be for my resurrection they'll remember me, you can be sure of it, for that is something many simply will never see or believe. But my death, my death will spring full blown into a confirmation of mythology, underscored by all the myths which have preceded it, and my death will be a sacrifice by God to know His own Creation. Just what you told me to do.'

"No, no, wait, Lord, there's something wrong with this!'

"You always forget yourself and to whom you are speaking,' He said kindly, the mixture of human and divine continuing to obsess me as I looked at Him, falling into His beauty and staggered by His divinity, and overcome again and again by my own sure belief that this was all wrong.

"Memnoch, I've just told you what no one knows but Me,' He said. 'Don't speak to me as if I can be wrong. Don't waste these moments with the Son of God! Can't you learn from me in the flesh as you learn from humans in flesh? Have I nothing to teach you, my beloved Archangel? Why do you sit here questioning me? What could possibly be the meaning of your word, wrong?'

"I don't know, Lord, I don't know how to answer. I can't find all the words. I just know this is not going to work. First of all, who will do this torturing and killing?'

"The people of Jerusalem,' He said. 'I will succeed in offending everyone, the traditional Hebrews, the callous Romans, everyone will be offended by the blinding message of pure love and what love demands of humans. I will show contempt for the ways of others, for their rituals and their laws. And into the machinery of their justice I will fall.

"I will be condemned on charges of treason when I speak of my Divinity, that I am the Son of God, God Incarnate ...and for my very message I will be tortured with such embellishment that it will never be forgotten; my death, by crucifixion, is going to be the same.'

"By crucifixion? Lord, have you see men die in this way? Do you know how they suffer? They are nailed to the wood and they suffocate, hanging as they do, weakening, unable to lift their own weight on their nailed feet, and finally strangling in blood and in pain?'

"Of course I've seen it. It's a common form of execution. It's filthy and it's very human.'

"Oh, no, no,' I cried out. 'This can't be. You don't mean to climax your teachings with such spectacular failure and execution, with such cruelty and death itself!'

"This is not failure,' he said. 'Memnoch, I shall be a martyr to what I teach! Blood offerings of the innocent lamb to the good God have been made since Humans began! They instinctively render to God what is of great value to them to show their love. Who knows better than you who spied on their altars and listened to their prayers and insisted that I listen! Sacrifice and love are connected in them.'

"Lord, they sacrifice out of fear! It has nothing to do with love of God, does it? All the sacrifices? The children sacrificed to Baal, and a hundred other hideous rituals the world over. They do it out of fear!  Why would love demand sacrifice?'

"I had clamped my hands over my mouth. I couldn't reason further. I was horrified. I could not sort out the thread of my horror from the overall stifling weave. Then I spoke, thinking aloud:

"It's all wrong, Lord. That God should be so degraded in human form, that in itself is unspeakable; but that men should be allowed to do this to God ...But will they know what they're doing, that you are God? I mean, they couldn't ...Lord, it will have to be done in confusion and misunderstanding. That spells chaos, Lord!  Darkness!'

"Naturally,' He said. 'Who in his right mind would crucify the Son of God?'

"Then what does it mean?'

"Memnoch, it means I subjected myself to the human for the love of those whom I have made. I am in the flesh, Memnoch. I have been in it for thirty years. Would you explain yourself to me?'

"To die like that, it's wrong, Lord. It's a filthy killing, Lord, it's a bloody horrible exemplum to lay before the human race! And you say yourself they will remember you for this? More than for your rising from the death, from the light of God exploding out of your human body and making this suffering fall away?'

"The Light won't burst out of this body,' He said. 'This body shall die. I shall know death. I shall pass into Sheol and there for three days remain with those who are dead, and then I shall return to this body and raise it from the Dead. And yes, it will be my Death they will remember, for how can I Rise if I do not Die?'

"Just don't do either one,' I pleaded. 'Really, I'm begging you. Don't make yourself this sacrifice. Don't dip down into their most misguided blood rituals. Lord, have you ever drawn near to the stench of their sacrificial altars? Yes, I used to say to you, listen to their prayers, but I never meant that you would dip down from your great height to smell the stink of the blood and the dead animal, or to see the dumb fear in its eyes as its throat is slit! Have you seen the babies heaved into the fiery God Baal?'

"Memnoch, this is the way to God which man himself has evolved. All over the world the myths sing the same song.'

"Yes, but that's because you never interfered to stop it, you let it happen, you let this humankind evolve and they looked back in horror on their animal ancestors, they beheld their mortality, and they seek to propitiate a god who has abandoned them to all this. Lord, they look for meaning, but they find none in this. None.'

"He looked at me as if I were mad, truly. He stared at me in silence.

'You disappoint me,' He said softly and gently. 'You wound me, Memnoch, you wound my human heart.' He reached out and put His roughened hands against my face, hands of a man who had worked in this world, labored as I had never labored in my brief visit.

"I shut my eyes. I didn't speak. But something had come to me! A revelation, an insight, a sudden grasping of everything here that was in error, but could I reason it out? Could I speak?

"I opened my eyes again, letting him hold me, feeling the callouses on his fingers, looking into his gaunt face. How he had starved himself; how he had suffered in this desert, and how he had labored these thirty years! Oh, no, this was wrong!

"What, my Archangel, what is wrong!' He demanded of me with infinite patience and human consternation.

"Lord, they chose these rituals which involve suffering because they cannot avoid suffering in the Natural World. The natural world is what must be overcome! Why must anyone suffer what humans suffer? Lord, their souls come to Sheol distorted, twisted by pain, black as cinders from the heat of loss and misery and violence which they have witnessed. Suffering is evil in this world. Suffering is decay and death. It's terrible. Lord, You can't believe that to suffer like this would do any good to anyone. This suffering, this unspeakable capacity to bleed and to know pain and to know annihilation, is what has to be overcome in this world if anyone is to reach God!'

"He didn't answer. He lowered his hands.

"My angel,' He said, 'you draw from me even more affection now that I have a human heart. How simple you are! How alien you are to the vast Material Creation.'

"But it was I who urged you to come down! How am I alien? I am the Watcher! I see what other angels don't dare to look at for fear they'll weep, and it will make you angry with them.'

"Memnoch, you simply don't know the flesh. The concept is too complex for you. What do you think taught your souls in Sheol their perfection? Was it not suffering? Yes, they enter perhaps twisted and burnt if they have failed to see beyond suffering on Earth, and some may despair and disappear. But in Sheol, over the centuries of suffering and longing, others are purged and purified.

"Memnoch, Life and Death are part of the cycle, and suffering is its by-product. And the human capacity to know it exempts no one!  Memnoch, that the illuminated souls you brought from Sheol knew it, that they had learnt to accept its beauty, is what made them worthy to come through the heavenly gates!'

"No, Lord, that's not true!' I said. 'You've gotten it wrong. Utterly. Oh, I see what's happened.'

"You do? What are you trying to say to me? That I the Lord God, having spent thirty years in this human body, have not struck the truth?'

"But that's just it! You've known all along you were God. You mentioned times when you thought you were mad or almost forgot, but those were brief! Too brief! And now as you plot your death, you know Who you are and You won't forget it, will you?'

"No, I won't. I must be the Son of God Incarnate to fulfill my ministry, to work my miracles, of course. That's the whole point.'

"Then, Lord, you don't know what it means to be flesh!'

"How dare you assume that you do, Memnoch.'

"When you left me in that fleshly body, when you cast me down for the Daughters of Men to heal and care for, in the early centuries of this very land, I had no promise you would take me back to Heaven. Lord, you're not playing fair in this experiment. You've known all along you're going back, you're going back to be God!'

"And who better than I can understand what this flesh feels!' He demanded.

"Somebody who doesn't fully rest assured that He is the immortal Creator of the Universe,' I said. 'Any mortal man hanging on a cross now on Golgotha outside Jerusalem would know better than you!'

"His eyes grew wide as He stared at me. But He didn't challenge me. His silence unnerved me. And once, again, the power of His expression, the radiance of God in man dazzled me, and drew upon the angel in me to simply shut up and fall at His feet. But I wouldn't do it!

"Lord, even when I went to Sheol,' I said, 'I didn't know whether or not I'd ever come back to Heaven. Don't you see? I don't claim to have your understanding of anything. We wouldn't be talking here if I did. But I didn't have any promise I would be allowed back into Heaven, don't you see? So the suffering and the darkness spoke to me and taught me, because I took the risk that I might never overcome it.  Don't you see?'

"He considered this a long time and then He shook His head sadly. 'Memnoch, you are the one who has failed to understand.  When is Humankind closest to God than when they suffer for the love of another, when they die so that another might live, when they plunge towards certain death for the protection of those they leave behind or those truths about Life which Creation has taught them?'

"But the world doesn't need all that, Lord! No, no, no. It doesn't need the blood, the suffering, the war. That wasn't what taught Humans to love! Animals already did all that bloody, horrible catastrophe to one another. What taught Humans was the warmth and affection of another, the love for a child, the love in a mate's arms, the capacity to understand another's suffering and want to protect that other, to rise above savagery into the formation of family and clan and tribe that would mean peace and security for all!'

"There came a long silence. And then very tenderly He laughed. 'Memnoch, my angel. What you learnt of life you learnt in bed.'

"I didn't answer for a moment. The comment was charged with contempt and humour, of course. Then I spoke:

"That's true, Lord. And suffering is so terrible for humans, injustice is so terrible for the balance of their minds that it can destroy those lessons learnt in bed, magnificent as they are!'

"Oh, but when love is reached through suffering, Memnoch, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.'

"Why do you say that? I don't believe it! I don't think you grasp it. Lord, listen to me. There's one chance for this to be proven my way. One chance.'

"If you think for one moment you will interfere with my ministry and my sacrifice, if you think you can turn the tide of the vast forces already moving towards this event, then you are no more an angel, but a demon!' He said.

"I don't ask that,' I said. 'Go through with it. Minister, outrage them; be arrested, tried, and executed on the cross, yes, do all of it.  But do it as a man!'

"I intend to.'

"No, you'll know the whole time you're God. I'm saying Forget that you are God! Bury your divinity in the flesh the way it's been buried intermittently. Bury it, Lord, leaving yourself only your faith and your belief in Heaven, as if it had come to you through Revelation immense and undeniable.

"But bury in this desert the true certainty that you are God.  Then, you'll suffer it all as a man suffers it. Then you'll know what this suffering is at its heart. Then will all the glory be stripped from agony! And you will see what men see when flesh is ripped, and torn, and blood flows, and it is your own. It's filth!'

"Memnoch, men die on Golgotha every day. What is important is that the Son of God knowingly dies on Golgotha in the body of a man.'

"Oh, no, no!' I cried out. 'This is disaster.'

"He seemed so sad suddenly that I thought he might weep for me.  His lips were parched and cracked from the desert. His hands were so thin I could see the veins. He was not even a great specimen of a man, only an ordinary one, worn down by years of toil.

"Look at you,' I said, 'starving, thirsting, suffering, tired, lost in all the darknesses of life, the true spontaneous evils of nature, and dreaming of glory when you exit this body! What kind of lesson can such suffering be? And who will you leave with the guilt for your murder? What will become of all those mere mortals who denied you? No, please, Lord, listen to me. If you won't leave your Divinity, then don't do it. Change this plan.

"Don't die. Above all, don't be murdered! Don't hang from a tree like the God of the Wood in the Greek stories. Come with me into Jerusalem; and know women and wine and singing and dancing and the birth of little ones, and all the joy the human heart can contain and express!

"Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants in their arms, their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction of those moments is so sublime that there is no horror on earth that can destroy the peace they feel! That is the human capacity for love and understanding! When one can achieve harmony in spite of everything, and men and women do this, Lord. They do. Come, dance with your people. Sing with them. Feast with them. Throw your arms around the women and the men and know them in the flesh!'

"I feel pity for you, Memnoch,' He said. 'I pity you as I pity the mortals who will kill me, and those who will inevitably misunderstand my laws. But I dream of those who will be touched to the core by my suffering, and who will never forget it, and will know what love I felt for mortals that I would let myself die among them before opening the gates of Sheol. I pity you. Feeling as you do, your guilt will become too terrible to bear.'

"My guilt? What guilt?'

"You're the cause of all this, Memnoch. You're the one who said I should come down in the flesh. You're the one who urged me on to do it, who challenged me, and now you fail to see the miracle of my sacrifice.

"And when you do see it, when you do see souls perfected by suffering ascending to Heaven, what will you think then of your paltry little discoveries made in the arms of the Daughters of Men? What will you think? Don't you see? I will redeem suffering, Memnoch! I will give it its greatest and fullest potential within the cycle! I will bring it to fruition. I will allow it to sing its own magnificent song!'

"No, no, no!' I stood up and railed at Him. 'Lord, just do as I ask. Go through with it, yes, if you must, found this miracle upon a murder, do it that way, if that is your will, but bury your certainty of Divinity, so that you really, really do die, Lord, so that when they drive the nails through your hands and feet you know what a man feels and no more, and when you enter the gloom of Sheol yours is a human soul! Please, Lord, please, I'm begging you. For all humanity, I'm begging you. I can't see the future but I have never been more frightened of it than I am now.' "

Memnoch broke off.

We stood alone in the sands, Memnoch looking into the distance and me beside him, shaken.

"He didn't do it, did he?" I asked. "Memnoch, God died knowing He was God. He died and rose knowing the whole time. The world argues over it and debates and wonders, but He knew. When they drove the nails, He knew He was God."

"Yes," said Memnoch. "He was man, but that man was never without the power of God."

Suddenly I was distracted.

Memnoch seemed too shaken to say any more just yet.

Something changed in the landscape. I looked towards the circle of stones, and realized a figure was sitting there, the figure of a dark-skinned, dark-eyed man, emaciated and covered with the sand of the desert, and he was looking at us. And without one fiber of his flesh being other than human, He was obviously God.

I was petrified.

I had lost the map. I didn't know the way back or the way forward, or what lay to left or to right.

I was petrified, yet I wasn't frightened, and this man, this dark-eyed one, was merely looking at us with the softest sympathy in his face, and the same unbounded acceptance of us that I had seen in Him in Heaven when He'd turned and taken me by the arms.

The Son of God.

"Come here, Lestat," he called now softly, over the desert wind, in a human voice. "Come closer."

I looked at Memnoch. Memnoch was looking at him, too, now and he gave a bitter smile. "Lestat, it is always a good idea, no matter how He is behaving, to do exactly what He says."

Blasphemy. I turned, shivering.

I went directly towards the figure, conscious of each shuffling step through the boiling sand, the dark thin form coming ever more clear to me, a tired and suffering man. I sank down on my knees in front of Him, looking up into His face.

"The Living Lord," I whispered.

"I want you to come into Jerusalem," He said. He reached out and brushed back my hair, and the hand was as Memnoch described it, dry, calloused, darkened from the sun as his brow was darkened.  But the voice hovered somewhere between natural and sublime, it struck a timbre beyond the angelic. It was the voice that had spoken to me in Heaven, only confined to human sounds.

I couldn't answer. I couldn't do anything. I knew that I would do nothing until I was told. Memnoch stood off, arms folded, watching.  And I knelt, looking into the eyes of God Incarnate and I knelt before Him completely alone.

"Come into Jerusalem," He said. "It won't take you long, no more perhaps than a few moments, but come into Jerusalem with Memnoch, on the day of my death, and glimpse my Passion¡ªsee me crowned with thorns and carrying my cross. Do this for Me before you make your decision whether or not to serve Memnoch or the Lord God."

Every part of me knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand it! I couldn't watch it. I couldn't. I was paralyzed. Disobedience, blasphemy, those weren't the issues. I couldn't endure the thought of it! I stared at Him, at His sunburnt face, at His soft and loving eyes, at the sand clinging to the edge of His cheek. His dark hair was neglected, wind-torn, swept back from His face.

No! I can't do it! I can't bear it!

"Oh, yes, you can," He said reassuringly. "Lestat, my brave bringer of death to so many. Would you really return to Earth

without this glimpse of what I offer? Would you really give up this chance to glimpse me crowned with thorns? When have you ever passed up a challenge, and think what I am offering to you now. No, you wouldn't back off from it, even if Memnoch urged you to do it."

I knew He was right. Yet, I knew I couldn't stand it. I could not go into Jerusalem and see the actual Christ carrying His Cross. I couldn't. I couldn't. I didn't have the strength, I would¡ª I was silent.  A riot of thought within me condemned me to utter confusion and continued paralysis. "Can I look at this?" I said. I closed my eyes!  Then I opened them and looked at Him again and at Memnoch, who had come near and looked down with a near, cold expression at me, cold as his face could be, which wasn't cold at all so much as serene.

"Memnoch," said God Incarnate. "Bring him, show him the way, let him but glimpse it. You be his guide, and then go on with your examination and your appeal."

He looked at me. He smiled. How frail a vessel He seemed for His own magnificence. A man with lines around his eyes from the hot sun, with worn teeth, a man.

"Remember, Lestat," God said to me. "This is only the world.  And you know the world. Sheol awaits. You have seen the World and Heaven but you have not seen Hell."

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