THE FALL (Rapha Chronicles #1) (The Rapha Chronicles) (28 page)

As Rapha fell to his knees, gasping, Cain froze and stared at Eden. The young man moaned and took a step toward the dog.

Suddenly, the voice from the mountain spoke, making the ground beneath their feet tremble.

“Cain, where is your brother? Where is Abel?”

Cain licked his lips, his eyes darting as if seeking escape. “I don’t know.” His volume rose and he added, “Why should I know where he is? Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The ground rumbled and Cain cowered, “You have no right to slay me! No one can prove anything! No one was there!”

“That’s right,” Lucifer’s voice spoke through the girl’s seductive lips, “there are no witnesses. You are safe!”

“I am safe….” Cain echoed her words.

“Cain,”
the voice of Adonai spoke again,
“your brother’s innocent blood cries out from the ground. Its stain is yet on your hands. The soil testifies against you. These witnesses to your deed cannot be silenced.”

“He lies! No one knows!” The girl hissed in his ear.

“Only I can cleanse your stain,”
the Holy One said.

Hope dawned in Cain’s eyes, “You can restore me? My parents need never know?”

“Your parents?” the girl hissed, “they have rejected you! Your
true
father is your past, present, and future!”

But the hope in Cain’s face died at Adonai’s next words.
“True repentance is willing to be humbled. Hiding your sin leads only to further evil.”

“Ha!” The girl gloated, “see! The best
he
offers is assurance of humiliation, while your true father lays the world at your feet. Slavery or a crown… not much of a choice, eh?”

“You would steal my crown!” Cain accused, his expression once more mirroring the girl’s hatred. “You would keep me a slave, groveling and sacrificing in a land with no women to carry on my father’s lineage—a lineage that threatens your kingdom. A noble bloodline you would snuff out!”

“Cain,”
Adonai’s voice was quiet,
“you have chosen. Since you will follow Lucifer, denying My offer of redemption, you are therefore banished from this place. Never again will you dwell in the blessing of your childhood. Wherever you go, since by your hand Abel’s blood was spilled, the land will no longer submit to you. For your labor, you will reap only thorns and hardship.”

In that moment Cain was no more than a frightened child. “My punishment is more than I can bear! How will I survive? Surely others will see I am cursed and slay me!”

Adonai answered,
“Your brother’s tears and prayers in your behalf yet ring in my ears. With his own lips he rejected his inheritance and gave you his eternal blessing. I honor that prayer.”

The voice swirled around them and Cain followed its sound with his eyes as if preparing for attack.

“You and your offspring will be mighty rulers of men but, since your flesh remains in sin, your corruption will tear at the fabric of creation.”

The voice ceased. The trembling ground grew still.

“Wait!” Cain cried out, “he
gave
me his blessing?” He looked down at his bloody hands and tears filled his eyes.

“What stupidity and weakness!” the female-ensconced Lucifer scoffed in his ear. “Abel was a fool! He has handed you the whole world.”

But Cain’s ears were filled with news of his brother’s selflessness. Tears trickled down his blood- and dirt-crusted cheeks. “Abel,” he whispered. Then he fell onto his face and wept, his huge shoulders heaving with gut-wrenching sobs.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mourning

When Cain left the land of his childhood, Adam and Eve were consumed by despair. For weeks Eve did not rise from her bed and Adam did not speak. While Eve’s grief was debilitating, Rapha was most concerned about Adam. The man’s faith and confidence had been so crushed everything was bitter to him. He took no joy in the challenge of sowing, reaping and tending. Since he no longer wanted to live, what was the point? His wife’s melancholy was a constant reminder of the sons they had lost, and thus her presence pained him.

Even the beauty of nature ripped at his soul until no joy could bypass the scars. Everywhere he looked he saw the same message inscribed like a banner over his life:
Adam. Has. Failed
.

When Rapha tried to speak to Adam of these things, the result was always the same. Rapha would remind Adam of Adonai’s promise about his seed redeeming the entire earth—and Adam would walk away.

Once again, Kal was an anchor in the storm. He cared for the flocks, oversaw the fields. and continued to treat Adam and Eve with gentle deference. But finally, when three moons had passed since Adam had joined them for a meal or even tended his own hair and beard, the faithful man suggested a plan.

“He must be jarred a bit out of his grief or it will continue to eat away at his soul.”

“What are you suggesting, a large branch to the back of his head?” Rapha asked.

Kal chuckled and a teasing gleam lit his eyes, “Believe me, I have considered it. But no, if we simply put him in a place where he cannot escape, we will say what needs to be said and pray he can hear it.”

Thus they planned their ambush, following Adam on one of his meandering walks, and finally cornering him when he ducked into a cave to escape the biting wind.

When he saw them, Adam tried to push his way out of the cave, but they stood their ground and held their hands out as if calming a wounded animal.

“Adam,” Rapha said, “we are concerned for you. Those yet living, those who love you, those who have not gone away, need you.”

“You still have a wife. You have a home and friends,” Kal added. “You have the favor of Adonai and His promises to hold onto.”

Adam snarled, “It would be better if I did not. I am a curse to all I touch.”

“No, Adam,” Rapha reassured, “Adonai’s promises cannot be broken. Go home. Love Eve. You will see a new beginning. In Adonai, there is always hope.”

“Hope?” Adam exploded with bitter laughter. “Hope is the most painful weapon of all. With it Adonai has carved out my heart. Abel is dead. Cain serves Lucifer. Eve’s womb is cursed. There is no hope for me here.”

“In Adonai, there is always hope,” Kal said. “I too lost a child.”

Adam looked up with vague interest.

“A baby girl with dark curls.” A spasm of pain rolled across Kal’s face and he gulped, unable to speak for a long moment. “I… gave her… to the gods… she was… burned. My mate, Eliana,” again he stopped, swatting with impatience at the tears on his face, “returned to the temple later and threw herself in.”

Kal’s eyes flamed with rage, “I had nothing. I threw all away to evil! Even so, Adonai brought me out. He forgave me. He gave new life, new purpose.” Kal gripped Adam’s arm. “Where Adonai is, there is always hope!”

“Then Adonai is not with me!” Adam shouted. “He pitied you, raised without truth. I do not deserve that! I invested my heart, my
life
, in my enemy’s offspring—for nothing! One is dead. The other is worse than dead. My wife’s
womb
is dead. This is what I have earned. There is no hope for me.”

Rapha moved to embrace him, but Adam recoiled and smashed his fist into Rapha’s face. Kal, with his warrior instincts, detained Adam with a none-too-gentle twist of the arm that forced Adam to his knees.

When he finally stopped struggling, his face was pressed to the ground, “Look, Adonai,” Adam whispered, “the hope of all creation is a madman. Was this Your plan?”

When Kal realized Adam’s fit had passed he loosened his grip and helped Adam to his feet. With an apology, Kal knelt before him.

“Do not ever bow to me again,” Adam said. “You are the better man.”

With that, he pushed past his two friends and exited the cave.

The next morning, Adam was gone.

He had taken little with him; a water skin was missing as well as one of their sharp cutting flints and a spear, so they wanted to assume he had gone to patrol the borders. However, when Eve emerged from her chambers, pale and hollow-eyed, she informed them it was Adam’s intention never to return.

“He asks that you do not try to follow him,” she stated, her beautiful face shadowed by grief, her abundant hair hanging dull and neglected about thin shoulders.

“But where did he go?”

“I do not know,” she replied, staring at a loose thread of the shawl she wrapped and unwrapped around a trembling finger. “He knows there is no future here, no sons to fulfill Adonai’s promise. Perhaps he will be blessed with another wife, one who can give him children.”

“But you are his mate. You are his flesh and bone,” Rapha said.

Eve yanked the shawl from her shoulders, ripped it in two and threw it down. “That bond was torn by Lucifer. Adam
should
go away. Why should he hold to vows that were broken before they were made? Why should he remain chained to a woman whose womb is broken?”

Rapha and Kal finally gave up trying to convince Eve to listen to hope. When she stumbled off, alone, to her chambers, they wrestled in prayer for the man and woman who had been the hope of creation.

In the coming days, Kal and Rapha were all that stood between life and hopeless fading for Eve. They convinced her to eat scant amounts but only due to the fact she was too numb to resist. They dragged her to witness the birth of newborn lambs and goats; however, these events that usually produced joy now could not penetrate her cauterized emotions.

But Eve had been blessed with a firm foundation of Adonai’s unending affection. So, even though it took a complete cycle of the constellations, a day dawned that once again witnessed her smile. For the devoted Rapha and Kal, not to mention their attendant menagerie, the sun finally shone a bit brighter.

Nonetheless, she had formed new habits in her grief. She still sang, but her melodies had a melancholy tone. She took her customary long walks through the fields but they ranged farther, her feet leading to steep mountain slopes and her eyes to the distant peaks, ever drawn to scan the horizon for a glimpse of her mate returning home.

So their lives continued. Kal and Rapha patrolled, protected and cared for flocks and fields while Eve wove, tended the fires, and developed her love of beautiful things by weaving pictures into the fabric. In this endeavor Kal was her tutor, having learned this artistry among his people.

Thus Eve busied her hands to salve the emptiness of her heart. But always, her weaving would slow and she would dream of the day loved ones would find their way home through the beautiful landscapes she recreated with her fingers.

In the coming years, others joined their small band, refugees from the surrounding lands where wars and strife never ceased. Whether human or animal, they were drawn by an irresistible desire for paradise, a desire woven into their hearts by the Creator. The canny few slipped through their defenses but most were ensnared, discovered by Rapha or Kal, and granted refuge. Sadly, a good number were women and children, abandoned or bereft by incessant war, desperate to escape the cesspools of humankind where they were easy prey.

Their quiet existence became more complicated but less lonely. For the first time, Eve enjoyed the company of other females and delighted in caring once again for the simple but constant needs of children. Early mornings heard the chatter of women stirring fires, fetching water and tending to the needs of their households along with the squeals and laughter of their young.

In this burgeoning society, Rapha began to withdraw to the solitude of the hills to “keep a more efficient watch on the land,” but Eve knew he wished to avoid the constant probing questions of their new inhabitants who insisted, with one glance at the former angel, that he descended from “the gods.” Therefore, his visits were sparse and usually conducted under cover of night.

Nevertheless, lively discussions regarding the handsome visitor abounded throughout the camp, fueled by the clandestine nature of his arrivals and also by gossip—some true, most fabricated. The refugees had come from a life of serving might and beauty. Although Eve and Kal continued their worship of the One True God and encouraged the new arrivals to learn Adonai’s ways, the newcomers found it easier to focus on this magnificent stranger whose humble clothing and mysterious ways only heightened their fascination.

As a result, Rapha lived the life of a nomad and hermit, committing himself to Adonai, and seeing to the needs of Eve and their land from afar. During a time of drought, a mountain stream would redirect its course overnight and life-giving water would once again flow in their valley. When disease struck their flocks, Eve discovered fresh game hanging in the courtyard, skinned and ready for the morning fire.

Kal journeyed often with Rapha, patrolling beyond the borders to gather news of distant lands and assessing any threat to their valley. In these forays Kal gleaned much regarding the pulse and rhythm of the earth, how to read signs in the trees, stars, wind, and wildlife that advised of things to come and warned of mistakes from the past. “But these signs were created by Adonai and are not intended for worship,” Rapha would caution. “His image is etched in them—but we serve Adonai, the Source of all life, not His reflection.”

But this wisdom was not heeded by most of the women in their valley who saw in the mysterious Rapha a rich source of fascination and speculation. They sensed his veiled power. Many a girlish daydream was fueled by the thought of this mysterious stranger who came and went like the wind and watched over the welfare of their little community.

Often Rapha entertained thoughts of disappearing entirely from the affairs of men, until rumors of great evil reached his ears. The birds informed him that a new sovereign ruled the lands outside their valley. The fierce tyrant Ish-el, called “Cyclops” by his enemies, was now dead, murdered by his successor who was ruthless in his quest for absolute power. The birds told tales of murders, destruction, perversion, and atrocities the likes of which had not been seen since the past age. Every day evil pressed closer, rising like a cursed tide to swallow what was good. Rapha decided he could not leave those in their valley unprotected.

The opening of Rapha’s dwelling faced east, the better to absorb the first warm rays of dawn, that moment when he felt the veil between the realms of heaven and earth stretch thin. He could, for a brief moment, sense the peaceful charge of Adonai’s breath, blowing His favor across the land.

Everything else—sleep, food, companionship, even shelter—he could ignore for extended periods, but his daily basking in Adonai’s presence through prayer, while not as effortless as when he was a member of the celestial court, was, nonetheless, a non-negotiable of his existence, more precious to him than his next breath. Always he was left gasping for more, as if he took a gulp of air only to plunge back into deep water once again. But it was enough to survive.

On this morning, seventeen years since the day Cain had departed their land, Rapha sat in the mouth of his cave basking in Adonai’s presence, tears rolling down his cheeks, his heart breaking with the longing Adonai felt for creation, the desire to gather all into His arms and heal every disease, correct every wrong, fill every being to overflowing with His love.

This time, however, when the rim of molten light peeked over the eastern horizon, the bright fire continued to come, a blinding flare that suddenly took shape before him. Rapha’s heart quailed before heaven’s presence as he heard a beloved voice.

“Greetings, Rapha, emissary of the Most High.”

Though his body shook with frailty he looked up into the face of Gabriel, whose form became solid as the light of his visage dimmed, conforming to the earthly realm.

For a long moment the two simply stared into each other’s eyes. To an outsider it might have appeared there was nothing to say but in truth their connection was far deeper than words. In a moment’s time they reestablished a camaraderie that stretched back to the dawn of creation.

Finally, the severe demeanor of the heavenly visitor relaxed and a smile lit his eyes.
“It has been too long, my friend.”

Rapha nodded but said nothing, sensing the urgency of Gabriel’s mission.

“I bring both commendation and warning,”
the angel continued.
“Adonai is well-pleased with your faithfulness but would warn of days to come. Creation once again hangs in the balance and the role you play in this crucial time will reverberate throughout eternity. Protect the woman, Eve. The root of the Messiah will issue from her. Fear not. The Most High goes before you. His love never dims even when all around is darkness.”