“The End Of The Beginning” – the saga of the stolen one: book Two

[13 June 1967]

It had been centuries since the three had last come together to judge the

course of human existence, but events were converging lately, making

another decision necessary. The man known to the Enlightened only as the

Mediator (his real name having long been erased in temporal memory)

materialized at the chosen meeting site. He looked around himself and

sent a psychic summons to the other two; here, they would not be

disturbed or observed.

It was difficult to determine precisely where “here” was, however.

The choice of meeting site was never his to make; some unimaginably

ancient power decided such details and somehow compelled the

Mediator’s further actions. He considered his immediate surroundings. A

waxing gibbous moon hung low in an ink-black sky, casting an ethereal

glow over the vast expanse of a desert. From where he stood, the air was

still, dry, and cool, carrying with it a sense of ancient secrets waiting to be

unearthed. The visible stars suggested a place far to the east of his last

location, his one true home in Venice. The land surrounding him was

clearly an alluvium of loose clay, silt, sand, and gravel, which told him he

was in a river valley. Some primordial waterways had carved this land out

of the rock foundations. As always, the Mediator had been deposited on

what may once have been a bridge, spanning a river or stream that no

longer existed. It was always a bridge; the symbolism of opposite sides

meeting on grounds equidistant from either side was important.

A great deal of anything important was symbolism.

Although the bridge’s brick-hewn sides were high and the Mediator

was not what the modern world would consider tall, he was tall enough to

look over the top and see a distant campsite. A flickering campfire

provided the only source of light from this angle, but it cast long shadows

across a number of excavation pits between here and there. The few

people he could see, silhouetted against the dim firelight, moved with a

quiet intensity, their faces, illuminated by the warm glow, as they sat

down, talked, ate, or delicately brushed away the layers of time from the

exposed relics they showed each other. His keen eyes focused on the

foreground, observing a mosaic of rectangular trenches, each revealing a

different chapter of local history. Tables with fragments of pottery and

shards of ancient clay tablets were being carefully cataloged by electronic

lamplight, their surfaces bearing the enigmatic cuneiform script of

civilizations long gone. Occasionally, a glint of metal caught his eye too,

hinting at the presence of jewelry or tools, patiently waiting to tell their

stories. The Mediator listened; the night air carried the hushed whispers of

the past, as if the very sands held memories they could not wait to reveal.

As he moved around, he could see other smaller campfires dotted

about and he could smell the spices of cooking. He also noted other, non-

relic related hushed conversations. The Mediator extended his senses in

the direction of the main cluster of people, Picking out words such as

‘Girsu,’ and ‘Tello,’ telling him where he was. There seemed to be

speculation among the scientists and the students in the camp that the

regime of Abdul Rahman Arif was floundering on the verge of collapse.

He was not aware of who that was but, apparently, he did not have the

charisma of his brother, who was known as the Colonel, and something

called the Ba’ath party was successful in gathering its forces for a

showdown. As he listened and put the clues together the truth dawned.

This was the southeastern most part of a region once called Mesopotamia,

a culture known as Sumerian, and a modern state called Iraq. Although he

did not take an interest in archaeology, the Mediator was aware, now that

he knew his location, that the site of the dig had already yielded numerous

artifacts which had provided historians with some insights into Sumerian

religion, politics, trade, and the daily lives of the people.

Well then, location and significance established. The Mediator was

unsure if this was an improvement on the last time the three had come

together, which had been 10 November 1483, on the Charles Bridge in

Prague, Bohemia.

Prague, at that time, had been far enough away from the birth of the

nexus to allow the judges to avoid the various supernatural and mortal

agencies that sought to interfere or influence them in their work. Security

was never really an issue for them of course; two of the three were immortal, and one was powerful enough to avoid the consequences of

most injuries.

Still, privacy was of paramount concern. The masses were simply not

ready to learn the truth of their existence.

The Mediator turned his attention back to the campsite, and listening

for more details of current events. Whether the revolution came this year,

next year, or not at all was neither here nor there to him, however.

As he stood listening, the unkind one materialized next to him; it had

adopted its feminine form for reasons known only to itself. She stood

silently, listening to the voices of the nearby camp.

‘I like these Ba’athists, Mediator,’ she said in perfect modern Italian.

‘And their future leader, Saddam Hussein. He will destabilize the Middle

East for decades to come. The conditions are perfect for it.’

‘No doubt you are correct.’

‘I knew Ningirsu some too, by reputation, you understand. He was…

magnificent. A god of agriculture, warfare, hunting… a deity of killing

and healing. Oh yes.’ She looked around and pointed to a mound not far

from the bridge. ‘There—his temple stood there. A place of religious

ceremony and urban administration. All trade started and ended there.’

She paused, and breathed in the smells. ‘I recall he had a pet, a massive

bird with a lion’s face. It could breathe fire and water. The Christians put

him in their writings and called him Nimrod.’

‘Ah,’ said the Mediator. ‘I recalled that fact, yes. I can see why you

would like these people. And Ningirsu was also a storm-bringer, much

like yourself. Did you ever meet?’

The unkind one turned her back on the view and leaned against the

wall of the bridge. ‘What’s not to like here, Mediator?’ she said, waving

her arm in that way people do to indicate the wider environment around

them. ‘There is an imbalance of power at the core of this state, you know.

Authority is exercised within the strictest bounds of obfuscation here, and,

of course, the vulnerable will suffer the most while leaders proclaim how

much they are doing for the masses. And no, we never meet, in conflict or

conference. Our worshippers were too far removed one from the other.’

‘I see. What became of him, do you know? As you are aware, gods

never completely die.’

‘Just so, but we do sometimes fade away. He may have no

worshippers now, so no source of power. But,’ she said, waving over her shoulder, ‘new discoveries here may revive him some.’ The unkind one

paused, sighed, and turned again to face the Mediator again.

‘Enough of that. How have you been, Alphonso?’ The unkind one

was never no less than polite. It… she… was charismatic, attractive,

magnetic, and able to set anyone at ease at her own pleasure. ‘How is that

lovely wife of yours… Thora, if I remember correctly?’

The Mediator smiled, as he always did at the thought of his wife.

‘Never better, Ba’al. Thank you for asking.’

‘That’s marvelous, Alphonso. And your children, do they thrive?’

‘They do, all in good health, and they all bid me to pass on their

thanks for the gifts.’

‘Excellent.’ The Mediator turned away from the light of the

campfires.

‘How is Anat and the triad?’ Ba’al was asked in turn.

‘Pidray, Tallay, and Arsay?’ The Mediator nodded

in encouragement. ‘I love my daughters, obviously, but they are still

causing me great grief.’

‘Tammu?’

‘No, not so much any longer. Just, generally, the temptations of the

world. They do not understand, or pretend not to, that they should not…’

Ba’al waved a hand in a lazy circle, looking for the right word, ‘interfere,

for lack of a better word.’

The Mediator chuckled. ‘Ironic.’

‘Quite so.’

‘You were always soft on them, Ba’al,’ a third voice admonished

sympathetically. It was a deeply masculine voice, Italian, but with an

Aramaic accent.

The kind one materialized on the other side of the Mediator. ‘If I’ve

told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times; off-spring need to be shown

the straight and narrow path and not be allowed to veer from it.’ He

paused. ‘Anyway, you both look well.’ The other two nodded.

‘Zadkiel,’ they greeted him almost in unison.

‘Besides,’ Ba’al spoke on, ‘as an anthropomorphic representation of

an ideal, you are hardly in a position to advise me, or anyone, on child-

rearing.’

‘And yet I do,’ the kind one smiled.

‘And yet you do.’

‘’Tis my nature to advise, dear lady, just as it is yours to challenge.’

‘Quite so.’

‘In any case,’ the archangelic leader of the mythic Dominions said,

turning to the Mediator, ‘are you sure that the conditions have been met?’

‘I am. We would not be here otherwise.’ The other two nodded in

acceptance.

‘Then don’t keep us in suspense, Alphonso. Omniscience was never

meant for the likes of us. Who are the candidates?’ The Mediator turned

away from the view of the campsite and moved forward to address his two

colleagues simultaneously.

‘The agent of change will be born on the east coast of the United

States of America, either this year or next, the son of a man named

Cornell.’

‘You look troubled. Is there an ambiguity?’ Alphonso regarded

as the one-time god of fertility and storms.

‘Not as such, no. The symbols, signs, and omens become…

unclear… in his later years; his… age, somehow changes, as does his

health… he will suffer… and so too his… his geography changes. It’s as

if he is born anew, if that is the correct word. I cannot uncover the cause

nor account for these changes at this time, save that Ireland is key to both.

It is intriguingly frustrating. He is both silent and yet talkative in a way I

cannot yet fathom, but, obviously, his time approaches.’

‘Hmm, yes, frustrating indeed if I am reading you correctly, but if not

mortal interference, then… supernatural manipulation perhaps?’ The

Mediator nodded at the Angel.

‘That is the only reasonable conclusion.’ Ba’al smiled at the Angel.

‘It’s not like the old days, is it, Zadkiel? Confluences of astral

bodies; changes in local weather patterns; animals suddenly talking; water

turning red. You knew a nexus a good century before it came along.

Plenty of time to scheme and plan. You knew where you stood back then.’

‘Aye,’ replied the Angel. ‘And the agent of stasis?’

‘Yes, happily there is more clarity there. The daughter of a man

named Shema. He is an accountant in Rwanda, East Province, prosperous.

No ambiguities about it: she lives and brings about conditions of stifling

reactionary conservatism, to the point of fascism if allowed to continue.’

‘Rwanda has problems now; Tutsi incursions, Hutu retaliations,’ the

kind one spoke in a tired fashion. ‘Without progressive stimulus, tribal conflicts could spill over into neighboring states in the Rift Valley and

perhaps soon the continent itself.’

‘True,’ acknowledged the unkind one, ‘but what you’re suggesting

can only happen with outside interference. If that were the case, it would

have to be American; the Chinese…’

‘At least,’ the kind one cut off his opposite mid-thought, ‘the

Chinese will actually bring about improvements.’

‘Yes, but at the cost of spreading communism, which, as you well

know, Zadkiel, eventually turns inward on itself and implodes.’

‘Let’s not get bogged down in future specifics, my friends,’ said the

Mediator. ‘Whichever agent succeeds, there is always a downside.’ The

other two conceded the point; long experience had proved the truth of the

statement. Whatever the plan of the Supreme Being was here, its schemes

were obscure and mysterious, even to its agents.

As there was nothing more to be said at this juncture, the judges

dematerialized in the opposite order to which they had appeared: the kind

one with a bow of his head and a flapping of his great white wings; the

unkind one with a flourish of her dress and a kiss thrown to the Mediator.

Alphonse smiled, took in one last breath of the enticing spice-flavored air,

then turned to the west and walked into a sudden profusion of shadow

darker than the night.