The Book of Joby (121 page)

“Lance, get up. Get up,” said Joby, reaching down to drag the man back into his arms. “Oh, Lance, I can remember now! And . . .” He stood back, “dismay” now added to the other feelings he’d retrieved. “Have we done it all again? Camelot in ruins . . . And Guinevere! I’ve failed her twice! Oh, Lance, I cannot bear it! Am I dead now? Yes, I am, and it’s too late to reach her! Too late . . . again!”

“Your Majesty, perhaps it’s not,” Lance said. “I am sent with tidings that you are not to come among us yet.” He looked down sadly. “Sire, you must go back.”

“Again?” Joby whispered, wondering if the heavy breath he drew was as real here as pain and disappointment seemed. “I’d hoped all that was finally done,” he said quietly. “Am I to pay for failing twice? Is that why I am yet allowed no rest?”

“Sire,” said Lancelot, tenderly, “He explains Himself least of all to me.” He placed a hand affectionately on Joby’s shoulder. “But think. You’ll have the chance you craved to find her, and to make amends. I’ll not be there to muddle things this time.”

“Yes. How selfish of me not to see that,” Joby said. “By God, I will! At
least, I’ll try.” He smiled, then barked a quiet laugh. “It seems I cannot even manage dying without several tries. Well,” he sighed and turned to leave, then stopped, looked back at Lancelot, and asked with some regret, “is it . . . very wonderful?”

“My Lord,” said Lancelot, seeming caught between unbridled joy and sympathy, “if I possessed an angel’s tongue, I could not describe it. I know it must be disappointing to be twice turned out, but they do say third time is the charm.” He raised a hand in parting. “For now, my lord, good-bye, but we await you with great joy. It will be soon enough, I think. Now go. And, Arthur, . . . kiss her, more than once, for me.”

“I will. . . . Good-bye once more then, Lance . . . for now. . . . Good-bye.”

Merlin sat amidst the smoking rubble that had been, so recently, the fairest town he’d ever known, and held the lifeless body of his grandson in his arms, and keened as he had never wept for centuries before. As Joby died, Merlin had flown at Lucifer in a mindless rage, prepared to blow a hole in the very fabric of the world if that might destroy the fiend. Then the Creator’s summons had rolled over them like thunder, and both angels had vanished in an instant, along with all Hell’s demons.

“Oh, Joby! Joby!” Merlin cried, rocking in his pain. “I never should have loved at all, to see it come to this!” He threw his face up at the sky, and sobbed, “Oh, God, forgive me! Please! Forgive me! I should not have disobeyed!”

“Did the devil . . . say . . . I was your grandson?”

For an instant, Merlin didn’t understand where the pale voice had come from. Then he looked down in shock to find his grandson’s eyes no longer vacant.

“He said he was going to destroy everything your grandson loved,” Joby barely more than whispered. “Was he talking about me?”

“Joby?” Merlin gasped. “My God!” He threw his face once more toward Heaven and shouted,
“Oh my God! Oh, thank you! Joby! How are you alive?”

“I . . . am, aren’t I,” said Joby, sounding perplexed. “I thought I burned.”

“Ah, Joby,” Merlin wept, dragging him into his arms. “It was not that kind of fire. I’m so sorry that you suffered it, and so glad you’re . . .
back
! Oh God!
You’re back
!”

With some effort Joby pulled free, and sat up to look around at all the ruin. “There’s nothing left at all,” he sighed. “I’d hoped all this was just a dream.”

“My boy, of course there’s something left. There’s you, by God!”

“I talked with Lancelot,” Joby said. “I remember who I was.” He turned to look at Merlin. “I remember you now too, but is it true? Am I your grandson now?”

Merlin nodded, momentarily unable to harness any voice at all.

“So
you
gave me that book about . . . ,” Joby smiled, then laughed, “myself?”

“I had no idea,” Merlin said, “that you were—
had
been . . . I just meant for you to
know
him, not to
be
him. . . . And you’re not, you know. Not anymore. You’re you now!”

Joby’s gaze turned inward. Then he nodded. “Yes. That was there,” he looked bleakly around once more, “not here. But have I failed again?”

“I cannot see what more He could have asked of you. If anyone has failed, it was myself, and . . . and others perhaps. I fear . . .” Merlin sighed, his joy dimmed for the first time since Joby’s miraculous return. “I fear that we have terribly betrayed you, Joby. Lucifer may win in spite of all you’ve done.”

“You?” Joby asked. “How? You helped me more than anyone.”

“Yes, and in so doing, we’ve all disobeyed Him, myself and several angels. Perhaps that’s why we lost this way. I . . . I should have trusted Him.”

“Disobeyed?” Joby said in clear distress. “He didn’t want you helping me?”

“His will was never mine to question,” Merlin sighed. “Yet I took it upon myself to change the course before you. . . . Not just once, I fear, but many times.”

“But . . . didn’t He want me to win?” Joby asked in clear dismay.

“I cannot believe He didn’t,” Merlin said. “But He commanded all of us—everyone who served Him—not to help you unless you asked us to, and you were such a stubborn lad. So quick to blame yourself, to grieve or fight, and try, but never, never would you ask for help! In truth, it was a trial to us all.”

“But, how could I have asked you?” Joby protested. “I had no idea any of you were there! Or that I was even in this trial! . . . At least, not consciously,” he said uncomfortably. “Not since I was a child, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” said Merlin. “But hereafter, Joby, since it seems you’re granted a hereafter after all, I hope you’ll try asking help of anyone you can, instead of going through everything so stubbornly alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Joby said. “From now on, I will, but, Grampa, if you wanted me to ask for help, how come you made us think that you were dead?”

“Ah, my boy,” Merlin answered, weary with regret. “In my
infinite wisdom,
I imagined I would be of more use to you that way.” He shook his head. “By
my arts, I saw some trouble coming to my daughter and her child, though not what it would be, and disastrously supposed that I’d be better able to act on your behalf unencumbered by the need to pretend I was just a normal man.” He looked at Joby sadly. “Do you know the thing I wanted most for your mother, and for you?”

Joby shook his head.

“A normal life,” said Merlin. “That was all.”

Joby hugged him then, wringing tears from Merlin’s aged eyes again.

“That book was my favorite possession, you know,” said Joby.

“I know,” Merlin said, seeing no need to tell him it had been made to be.

Suddenly, they were not alone. Joby gaped as Michael stood before them in full angelic glory, as if “Jake” were made of diamond now, with hair of fluid gold and massive wings shot through with rainbow, soft and white as pure sea foam.

“We are commanded to attend Him,” said the angel in a gentle voice filled with music, and with a sadness Merlin could discern, though Joby likely wouldn’t.

“Who?” said Joby, very much in awe. Then, “You mean . . .
Him
?”

Michael nodded, stretched out his hand, and opened up a gateway in the air, through which, instead of burning wreckage, they beheld a glade of soft green grass bedecked with flowers and ringed in giant trees. “Come,” said Michael. “He waits.”

Merlin yearned to ask the angel if he knew what judgment was awaiting them, but didn’t waste the time, doubting Joby understood a fraction of the moment conveyed in that simple phrase,
He waits.

Gabriel stood, one last time, he feared, at the right hand of his Lord, while Lucifer glared angrily from the left side of the clearing, commanded to await Michael’s return in silence. Between them, the Creator waited on a mossy tree bowl, guised just as He had been in Joby’s dream nearly thirty years before.

When Michael reappeared before them with Joby and Merlin, Lucifer gaped at Joby, looking apoplectic, though the Creator’s command still held him shut.

“My Lord,” said Michael, dropping to one knee and bowing his radiant head.

Behind him Merlin did the same, and Joby too, after staring in amazement at the very “Arthur” he obviously remembered having known and loved in childhood.

“Should friendship be hobbled by such formality, Sir Joby?” the Creator said, smiling. “Rise, and add the pleasure of your countenance to that of your courtesy.”

Joby looked up slowly, and stared some more.

“You
are
allowed to speak,” the Creator chided.

“What . . . should I call You, Sir?” Joby murmured.

“Certainly not that.” The Creator grimaced. “What would you like to call Me?”

“You . . . aren’t Arthur,” Joby said.

“No, I am not,” the Creator said quietly. “You know that now. As I recall, you always hoped that Arthur would return.” He shrugged happily. “Now you have.”

“I liked it better, though, when You were Arthur,” said Joby, still bewildered. “Would it be all right if I just call You Lord?”

“If you find that comfortable.” The Creator smiled.

“Lord it is, then,” Joby said uncertainly. “Do You always look like this?”

“Only for you,” the Creator said, beckoning Joby to His side. “Come sit beside Me, Joby. Let us talk the way we used to. I’ve badly missed our conversations.”

Joby came somewhat fearfully and sat down beside the Creator. “We’re on the Garden Coast, aren’t we,” he said, his eyes darting at all the unlikely things and persons around him. “But this is where we came to talk that day too . . . or night, I guess, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” said the Creator. “And have you guessed yet what this place really is?” When Joby shook his head, the Creator said, “One of a few very precious remnants scattered through this world of a much larger garden you have probably heard called Eden, preserved for Me down through the eons by a few of My favorite people.”

“I’m . . . not sure of this,” said Joby looking uncomfortably at Lucifer, “but I think he may want to burn it down.”

Lucifer made a strangling sound as if he might be going to rupture.

“Ah yes,” the Creator sighed, “there is so much we should discuss, but first, I fear, we must endure one last spate of lies. Lucifer, you may speak now.”

“I won!”
the devil shouted, as if uncorked. “I claim victory by default!”

“On what grounds this time?” the Creator asked wearily.

“Well, look at
You
!” Lucifer gasped. “Even
You
are interfering now! There are years left before this wager’s over! You’ve violated the most fundamental term of our—”

“The wager ended hours ago,” the Creator cut in firmly. “Lucifer, you
killed
the
candidate.
Our terms made
that
part very clear,” he turned to Gabe, “did they not?”

“That Lucifer not deprive the candidate of life itself or the power to choose unless and until the boy’s unequivocal failure has been confirmed before valid witness,” Gabriel said. “That was the term agreed to.”

“And was Joby deprived of life itself by My opponent?” the Creator asked.

“Obviously not!” Lucifer blurted out before Gabe could answer. “There he is in front of You, quite alive!”