Read My Soul to Keep Online

Authors: Tananarive Due

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Horror

My Soul to Keep (10 page)

BOOK: My Soul to Keep
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“Not my courage. It’s my reason I’ve lost,” Dawit says. “We should not have come to him again. This man is a trickster.” Dawit notices the cross sculpted into the stone window of the church, meant to ward off evil. They might need its power tonight.

Mahmoud laughs, biting into an apple he has brought. “He has swallowed the blood of Christ,” he chuckles.

“A lie,” Dawit says, annoyed.

“I only repeat his claim.”

“That is blasphemy to all of us, whether we follow the laws of Muhammad or Christ.”

“Or both?” Mahmoud teases.

“Why do you mock me? I answer to Allah only.”

“Today it is Allah. And tomorrow?” Mahmoud laughs, and Dawit must smile despite his anger. Mahmoud knows his heart; Dawit is drawn to the strong. Perhaps he has not given his heart to God at all, but only to the armies of warriors who cry out God’s many names.

Mahmoud kicks pebbles from beneath his feet until they bounce loudly down the stairs. He feeds the rest of the apple to his horse. “Well, something brings you back here, Dawit.”

Dawit sighs, examining the mysterious expanse of starlight above them through breaks in the clouds. The lights beckon him in the patterns of constellations he has now learned to see. There is the one that resembles a ladle! He sees it readily. “I’ll tell you why. I like the pictures he shows us in the sky.”

“And the symbols on a page he can read as words. That, too. We can learn to write, like the royalty. And the clergy.”

“He is a good teacher,” Dawit admits.

They hear the shuffle of feet, and soon they are joined by others at the top of the stairs; blacksmiths, carpenters, Christian traders, even two or three monks. One of the monks is responsible for their entry to this church tonight, Dawit knows. Soon, they number more than fifty, the youngest a boy of twelve. None of them wants to meet the eyes of the others near them. They are ashamed of their loose fellowship, seeking the voice of this mysterious man who speaks all tongues and calls himself by a Muslim name, Khaldun—meaning eternal.

Dawit gazes scornfully at the monks, who wear brass crosses on chains around their neck. They, like him, are hypocrites to seek audience with such a false prophet. “We should all be damned,” Dawit mutters.

“Speak softly, Dawit. He comes.”

Khaldun always walks with a torch, so he is visible from a distance. None of them can ever say with certainty from where he has come. His torchlight seems to appear at will in the night, traveling toward them in flickering orange that paints the bearer’s form against the walls in a monstrous shadow. He wears a splendid white robe that drags in the dirt. Dawit’s heart quickens.

Soon, Khaldun is close enough for them to see his face and the bushy black beard that hangs to his breastbone. He is a black African, not mixed with lighter bloods, though he has never told them which people are his. His strangely translucent eyes travel from face to face and he walks past, studying them. “You thirst,” he says to each one after a gaze. “You thirst.” He stands before Dawit, bearing into him with those soul-seeing eyes. Dawit struggles to meet his gaze, but loses his nerve and casts his eyes downward. He is a coward!

“You thirst,” Khaldun says, rubbing Dawit’s wrist.

In a silent line, they follow Khaldun down the stairs into the magnificent sanctuary carved from stone. Khaldun has told them how men broke their backs bringing the stone down from the Lasta Mountains under the reign of King Gebra Maskal Lalibela. Khaldun knows all that has come before. Dawit gazes at an archway as they pass beneath it, and he sees birds painted above the chiseled stone. Artists have covered the walls with images of saints and Christ, all of the figures’ big brown eyes wide and full of piety.

In a corner of the church, they find seats in the rows of flat wooden benches. Khaldun mounts his torch in a hole carved in the wall and sits before them on the floor, his legs folded beneath him. They seem afraid even to stir as they wait for Khaldun to speak.

“My pupils,” Khaldun begins in the voice that sounds ancient though his face is not much older than Dawit’s, “your thirst for knowledge is the magnet that brings you to me. It is your brotherhood. You seek all knowledge, and all knowledge you shall attain. But to walk this path, you must follow with your heart as well as your mind. You must follow without fear, without doubt. This is a path from which no mortal man returns. There are no visitors to this home. Once you enter, it is yours to dwell in for all time.”

They sit before Khaldun as if statues. His lessons do not usually begin this way. Dawit had hoped Khaldun would bring them the hollow bamboo instruments he is teaching them to blow to produce pleasing music, or that he would tell them more tales from African kingdoms. What is this he speaks of tonight?

Khaldun’s voice floats between Dawit’s ears like a magic balm. Dawit wants to move, yet he cannot. The voice fills his veins, seducing him. He knows he is hearing a sorcerer.

“You Christian brothers … remind us why Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit,” Khaldun says. “What was it they sought? Was it riches? Was it sins of the flesh? What did they seek?”

“Knowledge,” one of the monks answers him.

Khaldun’s face breaks into a smile of perfect teeth. “Yes. Knowledge. Knowledge, in the end, is the only prize.”

“You drank Christ’s blood?” Dawit blurts, interrupting.

The eyes of the others fall to him. Khaldun, instead of appearing angry, continues to smile. “Dawit … yes … the inquisitive one, the new son of Islam. What can I tell you of Christ’s blood? There is more than you learned in your Scriptures. There is more than what you find in the Bible, or in Muhammad’s Qur’an. There is much more. Did you know that precious ounces of Christ’s blood were stolen from the fresh corpse, drained into a leather pouch? This is true. I was there when it was done.”

“For what purpose?” Dawit asks, his mouth dry.

The flame’s dance alters Khaldun’s face slightly, shifting him into shadow. “Once, in my travels long ago, I joined a group of shepherds. We met another traveler—in the random manner in which all of you met me—who told us of a dream. He asked if we knew of this man called Jesus. We did. We had all heard stories of his claims. The traveler said he did not follow this man’s teachings, yet in his dream he learned that Christ was among the prophets chosen to rise. The traveler told us of a plan. And we listened.

“Our hearts were not ready for faith, but we were greedy for life. The dreamer took us to Calvary, where Christ was nailed, and we stood among his followers to watch him suffer and die. His death was not so serene as these paintings you see all around you. When the corpse was brought down, I watched my companion help clean his wounds and steal blood from Christ’s own veins. We sat vigil for two days over the cold pouch. Then, not long before the reports of the empty burial cave miles from where we sat, the blood in our pouch grew warm. We could feel the heat when we passed it between us. The blood lived.”

With Khaldun’s words, the room fills with gasps, murmurings of wonder. Khaldun silences them by raising his arm above his head. His voice grows as heavy as the rain pounding on the roof of the church.

“Our friend learned an incantation in his dream, a Ritual of Life for the Living Blood. He held up for us a vial of poison. Only through death, he said, could life return. He instructed us to drink the poison. At the instant of death, he told us, he would inflict a small wound and pour the Living Blood into our own veins to perform the Ritual of Life, repeating the words from his dream. There were six among us. One by one, we drank.

“Only I survived the Ritual. This, I believe, was in keeping with his design. The dreamer, who had not taken the poison, needed only one of us for his purposes. By morning, when I awoke, I cursed him. I thought him a devil, and a devil I now know he was. He asked me to perform the Ritual of Life on him, as I’d seen him attempt on the others, but my heart was overcome with fear. I had a vision that he would become a monster, perverting the blood to harm scores of men and make himself a god. After he drank the poison, I stood over him with the pouch of Living Blood in my hand, but I gave him none. I allowed him to die. Does that answer your question, Dawit?”

Dawit nods, transfixed and silent. “Why do you tell us this?” whispers Mahmoud. His voice shakes.

Khaldun studies their faces a moment before answering, his head turning from one side of the room to the other. “I have learned much in my years. I have been alone too long. I need obedient pupils who are willing to journey with me in Life for the purpose of knowledge, and knowledge alone.”

“Do you have the blood still?” Dawit asks.

“The Ritual of Life awakened me from the dead, and I drank what little blood remained. Its saltiness coated my throat. The Blood of Life is inside me. I have lived much like a hermit for many years, asking God to forgive me. But He does not hear my prayers because I have stolen from one of His favored children. So, I no longer seek redemption. I seek knowledge instead, because knowledge is infinite. And I seek pupils. Two hundred years ago on this night, I found a lame dog. I poisoned his food and performed the Ritual of Life as I remembered it, emptying blood from my veins into a wound I made in the animal’s flesh. That dog is with me still, and he has never been lame since. He guards me when I sleep.” He paused, shrouding his voice in a near-whisper. “I can do the same for a man.”

Another gasp fills the dank room. The men stare at one another, their eyes wide. Excited, Mahmoud squeezes Dawit’s knee hard, peering at him with wonder. Dawit brushes his hand away, leaning close to Mahmoud’s ear. “He lies,” he whispers. “He says he has a dog. Where is the dog, then? What proof could we have of its age? He is a storyteller. These are Christian lies.”

“Silence,” Khaldun instructs, and they obey. He drops his robe past his shoulders until his hairless chest and abdomen are exposed. Then he pulls from his belt a long knife that gleams in the torchlight.

“Before I do what I must to show you the miracle of the Living Blood, you must promise to remain here the night, no matter what you see. You must wait as we waited. In the morning, all will be clear to you. Then you may choose to follow me.”

They promise aloud, one by one, to remain the night.

Satisfied, Khaldun grasps the dagger so tightly that the muscles in his slight arm quiver. He closes his eyes, his face turned upward. Then, he plunges the knife into his own side. His mouth agape in a soundless scream, he drags the blade across his belly, leaving a yawning wound in his flesh. A river of blood gushes forward, releasing his coiled insides.

Frightened, the men leap to their feet and huddle in the back of the room. Khaldun looks like a slaughtered cow. He sits for a moment, watching his own innards escape through his wound, and then he crumples in a puddle of blood on the floor.

Instantly, two men break their promise and flee up the stairs. Dawit and Mahmoud watch them go, then they gaze at each other. They have promised to stay. With weak legs, they walk to the bench closest to Khaldun’s corpse and sit before him, watching. Slowly, uncertainly, the others follow their example.

For hours, nothing happens. The torch is burning low.

“Look,” one of the men whispers at last, pointing.

When did the bloody wound begin to close itself? Have they imagined this? Dawit leans close. He can see that, although Khaldun’s innards and blood still lie around him, the long wound across his abdomen has sewn itself into a sealed, bloody scar.

“What Devil’s work is this?” a monk mutters.

They wait, but still Khaldun does not stir. Dawit, like the others, dozes to sleep shortly before dawn, his chin resting against his chest. He awakens after someone places a warm hand on his shoulder.

Dawit opens his eyes to find Khaldun standing before him, wearing the smile of a father. His bloody scar is gone, his belly healed with barely a trace of the knife’s treachery.

“Will you accept the Life gift, Dawit?” Khaldun whispers.

How can this be? A man can die and yet live again? And all wounds will heal as though by miracle? An army of such men would rule for eternity!

His mouth open with amazement, Dawit can only nod.

9
 

“Her name is Rosalie Tillis Banks. The nursing-home lady. I have a case number,” Jessica said into the telephone receiver, trying to sound patient with the police clerk in Chicago. “I’d love to swing by, but I’m in Miami. If someone could just fax it to me …”

With their book deal signed and four days to go before her scheduled leave, Jessica wanted to get as many long-distance calls out of the way on the
Sun-News’s
tab as she could. Sy was livid about losing two investigative reporters with only two weeks’ notice, and she and Peter felt guilty, but it couldn’t be helped. There was so much to do. They were trying to decide if Chicago should be one of their trips, and red tape had prevented her from getting the police report, which would have the names and telephone numbers of people she needed to talk to. Someone had supposedly mailed her a copy, but it never arrived.

Jessica had a sister on the phone. She’d have to play that card now, slipping into a more down-home vernacular. “Can’t you hook me up? I see what you’re saying about procedure, but it’s a long way to Chicago. Sister, please.”

The clerk, who sounded honestly harried, relented. “You better mention me in your book,” she said.

Within an hour, the eight-page fax transmission began, and the old woman’s death took shape. Banks, a widow, had no next-of-kin except an Indianapolis cousin who’d sent for her things. She’d suffered from advanced pancreatic cancer. Died January twelfth. The regular night nurse hadn’t come in because of a storm the night of the murder, so the wing had been unattended for several hours longer than usual. (Made sense, Jessica thought. David had been in Evanston lecturing at Northwestern University that week,and he called home every night to complain about the snow.) Body wasn’t discovered until morning. Only clue at all was an unfamiliar black male who’d asked about her the day she was murdered. Composite sketch to follow, the report said.

BOOK: My Soul to Keep
9.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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