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ERAN COULDN’T COUNT the hours underground, and not knowing how many had passed stressed him more. He massaged the tingling out of his regenerated legs. Laszio, who sat beside him, had his knees drawn to his chin and hadn’t budged since Elazar left. They both just listened to a comatose Nechum’s labored breaths. Nechum had yet to awaken, and Eran envied him for it. To be blissfully unaware of what had transpired would have been a kindness.
Jediah sat a distance away. Eran wanted to weep for the two soldered stumps on his back. His wings were gone. The Key was in enemy hands, and now Jediah counted on him and Laszio to protect the Abyss. Eran disdained the idea of abandoning their captain now, but he knew they must leave him behind and soon.
Eran tested the strength of his wings. Twinges peppered their joints, but they otherwise handled the air well. It wouldn’t be long before they were fit for travel. Eran pressed his head into his hands. He didn’t want to command. Never did. Jediah was captain and a gifted one. Who was he besides the lowest officer with the shakiest strategies and no plan?
“I don’t remember ever feeling this low,” Laszio murmured beside him. He seemed to have taken Eran’s words right out of his mouth.
Eran raised his head and looked at his best friend. “To be honest, me neither.”
Laszio’s foot traced pointless circles in the dirt. “Can I confess something?” he whispered. “I’m ashamed to say it, but so many times... so many times I’ve asked the Lord ‘why’. Why did He make me so weak?” He hugged his knees tighter. “There’s so much I want to give, Eran. So much I want to do for Him. But even at my best, I fail. Why’d God make me like that? Why must I have the passion to conquer mountains yet incapable of placing a foothold on the smaller hills?”
Eran watched his friend sag like a dying tree, and he himself felt like dying with him.
Laszio licked his lips. “I love His people. I love my brothers. I love Him,” his husked voice rushed. “So why does He hold me back?”
Eran bowed his head and admitted, “I’ve wondered the same things too, brother, but I don’t know anymore than you do. God must have some reason.”
“All I ever desired is to help Him,” said Laszio. “Help God’s good work in the world.”
Hearing that, Eran paused. Something different, like another lens in his perception, took shape. “Help Him...” he repeated. “Help Him... Do we really help Him, Laszio?”
Laszio rolled his eyes and grunted, “No. All we do is mess up.”
“No. I mean, not only us. I mean all of us. Does He really need any of our help?” After Laszio didn’t respond, Eran pressed. “Well? Is He God or isn’t He God?” A few seconds later, Eran sat up straighter. “I guess what we tend to forget, Laszio, is that whatever it is we do or have done, He could have done for Himself. Our worth can’t be tied to what we can do for Him or how much we think He needs our help.”
Dejected, Laszio turned toward him and asked, “Then why do we exist? Why create us to serve if we’re not needed?”
“To show us the depths of His love,” Eran answered. “He never needed us, but He’s made us for Him to delight in. He’s allowed us to be imperfect, so His unconditional grace can come to light. For what need is there for mercy when there’s no fault? And...” Eran took a moment to reflect on his next words. For they mattered just as much to him as it did to Laszio. “God expressed how much He loves us by giving us the chance to do something we never could.”
“And what is that?” asked Laszio.
Eran cleared his throat. “To become part of something far bigger than ourselves. Think of it, Laszio. God has invited us to share in the good work of bringing His message of love to those who need it. And last I checked,” he planted a firm hand on his brother’s shoulder as tears sprung from his eyes. “He uses His weakest for His greatest glories.”
His arm and shoulder trembled. Removing his grip, Eran turned and stared ahead with a contented smile. “He created you to delight in you, Laszio. He created me to delight in me and to delight in all who love Him. And if we love Him, He gifts us with the means to express it in the exact unique way He designed us to... in whatever form that takes.”
After a moment’s silence, Laszio gave a tired chuckle, feeble yet sincere. “You always were the smart one, Eran.”
“Well,” said Eran. “One of us has to be.”
Laszio laughed and gently elbowed Eran’s side.
Gripping the tender spot, Eran smiled. “Easy. I’m gonna need that later.”
“Mm.”
Eran looked behind to find Nechum had opened a groggy eye. “Haven’t we had enough fighting?”
“Hey,” Laszio said. “How are you feeling?”
Nechum’s cheek pressed against the stone. “Better... relatively.”
Eran unfurled his restored wings. Laszio followed suit. Then, in unified consent, they made their feathers interlock. They glowed. The quills fluffed, and the two laid the new downy blanket over Nechum, enveloping him in soothing warmth. The tension in Nechum’s shoulders dispelled.
A tall figure approached. Alameth, now able to stand, watched them with a kind sympathy Eran never expected to see from him ever. The second their eyes met, Alameth turned his gaze elsewhere and folded his hands. He frowned. His mouth opened and closed over and over, as though needing to speak but too ashamed to, but Eran knew exactly what he meant to say. “There’s nothing to forgive...”
“... brother,” Laszio finished.
Alameth’s eyebrows raised. A strange gloss blanketed his eyes, and he smiled a smile that transfigured his entire being. No longer did he look like that aloof, unfeeling entity to Eran, nor that fearsome phantom that lingered close by. He was an angel—an angel who loved more deeply than he or Laszio knew and struggled with weaknesses and failings, just as they.
“Alameth,” Nechum croaked.
Heeding Nechum’s call, Alameth stooped down and sat beside him.
Nechum lifted a hand. “Help me up, please.”
“What? No,” Eran protested. “You need rest. You’re not healed yet.” He frowned at the wetted rips across Nechum’s tunic where Elazar’s lash had struck.
Instead of acknowledging Eran’s concern, Nechum squeezed Alameth’s hand and said, “Jediah needs you, Alameth. Go to him.”
Alameth pursed his lips. He bowed his head, hiding his expression under his hood. “He doesn’t need me. Why would he?” he asked.
“Believe me, brother,” Nechum said. “He does.”
***
Moving, even with Alameth’s support, was near insufferable for Nechum. Every footstep equalled another stab to his legs, yet he trained his mind on Jediah. His empathic sense tasted a despair in him he only felt in the most broken of individuals.
Nechum’s heel struck a protruding rock. He hissed as his entire ankle hummed.
“You want to go back?” Alameth whispered.
It occurred to Nechum Alameth wanted a way out, but as much as he disliked it, it was his turn to be firm. “No,” he insisted. “We’re doing this.”
As they approached, Jediah cast a concerned look at Nechum’s ragged appearance. He sighed, “You both should rest, brothers.”
“Then may we rest with you?” Nechum asked.
Jediah turned his face away. “You need not ask my permission.”
Nechum bit his tongue to keep from moaning as Alameth lowered him. His knees felt like snapping, but soon he sat with Alameth and Jediah on either side.
Nervous shivers ran all over Nechum as he watched Jediah pull off his scarf, the one that bared the captain’s crest, and cast it aside. “That scarf looks better on you than on the ground, Captain,” Nechum said.
Jediah stared at the cloth he threw away, now curled in its lonely pile. “What does it matter? I never deserved it anyway.”
Nechum rested his hands in his lap. “But isn’t that the point of God’s grace, brother? Not deserving it?”
Jediah bent his neck, hiding his face further, and Nechum locked his jaw. His brother was slipping further away. “Jediah,” Nechum flinched at first for addressing him informally, but realized this was the perfect time. They weren’t officer and advisor right now. They were family. “I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers. I wish I did,” he said.
Jediah didn’t move.
Nechum swallowed. “But don’t think for a second that you’re alone. All of us have come up short. Many times and in many ways.”
“I already know that, Nechum,” Jediah replied.
“Yet,” Nechum continued, “you don’t know there are even those of us who’ve desperately longed for Christ’s salvation for the same reasons you did.” Taking a pause, Nechum turned to Alameth.
Alameth’s green eyes shone from under his hood like a cat hiding in a box. He shrank back, uncertain about entering the conversation, but Nechum nodded to him with an encouraging smile. It’ll be okay, Alameth.
Alameth sighed, then pulled back his hood to rest loosely on his shoulders. “He’s referring to me, Captain.”
Jediah’s head snapped up to look at him.
Staring into his lap, Alameth rubbed his legs back and forth. “You’ve spent lifetimes suffering from guilt for wronging somebody, right?” he asked. “Thinking your foolish mistake not only hurt yourself but wounded someone close to you?”
The inner corners of Jediah’s eyebrows raised at a slight angle. “Yeah,” he said in a breathy whisper.
Alameth nodded and said, “I thought as much.”
Jediah changed positions. “Who did you wrong?”
Alameth took a moment before starting. “It was about 2,000 years before the Son’s Birth. God’s promised people, the sons of Abraham, languished in Pharaoh’s grip.”
“Right before the Tabernacle Age,” Jediah deduced.
“Yes,” Alameth confirmed. “The length and breadth of Egypt’s sins had reached its full measure. God determined then to punish their years of careless bloodshed and free the people of His prophecy. He hardened Pharaoh’s heart and granted that power-hungry man the indomitable will he always wanted... We all know the price Pharaoh paid for his pride.”
“The ten plagues.” Jediah barely uttered those words, and Alameth lifted his head to reveal the most sorrowful eyes.
Realization caught up with Jediah. “The tenth plague... was you. You killed the firstborn.” Jediah shook his head in disbelief.
Nechum rubbed Alameth’s shoulder. He didn’t know if he could continue. Already he sensed the past attacking Alameth’s memories, cementing him in place.
Alameth’s hair covered his face as he bowed his head. “And there will be a loud wailing throughout Egypt,” he recited. “Worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.”
“That must have been hard,” Jediah consoled, bowing his head.
“Horrible,” Alameth replied. “But not near as horrible as my response. For you see, Jediah... when God gave me that order... I yelled at Him.”
Nechum didn’t need his empathic sense to feel Jediah’s shock. The soldier went ashen. His neck stretched upward, and his eyes bore into Alameth, confused and afraid.
Alameth beat back the trembling in his voice to continue speaking. “When God summoned me for the task, I remember thinking, ‘How could He ask me this? To devastate generations all at once? He knew I hated dooming the lost. So why in heaven would He ask me?’” Alameth clutched his coat, wrinkling it with his fingers. “I forgot His providence. He knows the heart of every man. He knew that generation would become twice as evil as their stiff-necked parents and ancestors if not stopped. More importantly, His Messianic line, His seed to destroy the Curse, needed to leave Egypt. It depended on this disaster taking place. But I was so selfishly wrapped up in my own turmoil... I yelled... I screamed right in His presence. I first begged God not to make me do it. Then I outright refused do it.”
Jediah gasped. Nechum too shivered. A refusal to God marked rebellion, the eternal death of the costliest sort.
Alameth’s head raised. “Then, right when I almost walked away from the Throne forever,” he shook his head. “I can’t even describe the guilt that ran me through. It stopped me cold, and I realized the full gravity of what I had just done... I was directly opposing my Maker’s ultimate plan to rescue all nations through Israel.”
Alameth ran his hand through his hair. “My strength left me, and I fell prostate at His feet. I wept so loud—not just for His forgiveness, but for my weakness. Because I knew, even as I repented for my disrespect, I didn’t have it in me to do what He asked. I could not obey.”
Jediah scooted closer. “And then?”
“El Shaddai stepped down from His Throne.” Alameth said. “And do you know what He said to me?” He smiled as the tears freely flowed.
Jediah shook his head, as his own tears sprang up, too.
Alameth continued, “He said to me, ‘Your weakness is the very reason I’ve chosen you, Alameth. Consider whom I have called: Not many of them were wise; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth. But I chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; I chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. I chose the lowly and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are.’ Then our Lord raised my head, saying, ‘My grace is sufficient. For my power is made perfect through weakness. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.’”
Nechum couldn’t contain himself either and cried quietly. Joy from knowing the goodness of their Lord was so strong, it couldn’t be felt without breaking the heart.
“Then finally,” Alameth recalled. “God helped me to my feet and said, ‘Do not fear, Alameth. For I am with you; I will strengthen and uphold you in my right hand,’.”
Jediah wiped the moisture dripping off his chin.
Alameth stood up and stepped closer to Jediah and kneeled. “Like you, Captain, I could have eaten myself alive for resisting Him as I did. But those four simple words He said to me continue to echo in my mind today and saved me, even calming me as I lifted the breath of life from millions... My grace is sufficient.”
Jediah’s gaze drifted aside.
“It’s the point of belonging to God, brother,” Alameth said. “Whether be we angels or the redeemed.” Jediah’s eyes returned to Alameth as he finished with, “Christ is sufficient. Through whatever harms, threats, or weaknesses, He’s enough.”
Jediah fell into a reverent silence, and Nechum’s spirit rose to sense the change in him. Fire burgeoned in Jediah’s sunset eyes until it dawned into a new morn. “He’s enough,” Jediah repeated to himself. He arose. His slouched and scorched back straightened, and despite the lack of wings, his nobility returned in his stance.
Nechum stood up and bowed in respect. “So what are your orders, Captain?”
Jediah opened his palm and looked at the frayed lock of braided hair he had kept. Cupping it, he gave it shelter in his pocket and turned on his heel for the tunnels.
“Sir?” Nechum called. “Where are you going?”
The reinvigorated warrior clenched both fists and put confidence in every stride. “I need my sword.”