Chapter Three
Fire from Heaven
One month earlier in the land of Assoria.
Zalisha knelt on the hard floor unmindful of her sore knees on the prayer mat. She had been praying for hours, days really. And all she’d gotten from her dedication was silence, which is all she ever got.
She’d been the high priestess of the temple for barely two years now. The spiritual leader of her people. They looked to her to tell them how the spirits would move on behalf of them.
Seeking hope, simply a word of encouragement that things would get better. She had nothing. Nothing to tell them!
Nothing!
She could have just blamed herself if it hadn’t been for the previous high priestess’s dying words to her. She had told her with her last breaths that she too had never heard from the spirits of the land, of water, or even of fire. That when it came time to make a decision that she was to lie and say that the spirits had told her such and such in order that the proud traditions and hope of her people could go on.
At the time she had thought the priestesses last words were the whimsical folly of one near death, but now she wasn’t so sure. It was a daring thing to doubt her people’s traditions, but she did now openly within the confines of her mind.
If the spirits had been watching out for her people like it was claimed that they did why had they not warned them of the disaster that had befallen her people four days previous?
Her head lifted slightly and her eyes drifted to her hand and the brand on it. The smooth skin of the top of her hand had the symbol of the sorcerer sliced into it by a knife. She had been held down by the assassin sent to kill her and had watched as he had cut the symbol of the Sorcerer into the top of her hand with the poisoned edge of his dagger.
He had left her crying on the floor not knowing that he had not been successful in killing her, otherwise he would’ve thrust her through the heart.
The edges of the cuts oozed a brownish fluid and she had no feeling in her hand at all. Her body was fighting off the poison, but she may yet lose her hand. At least she still had her life unlike every other member of the royal family.
All of them were dead.
The king, his wives, children, close relatives, distant relatives, even a newborn baby rumored to be the bastard son of one of the king’s sons. Over four hundred people all killed in one night by a veritable army of assassins in the employ of the sorcerer.
She alone of all the members of the longest running dynasty of the Eastern Kingdom was alive. The people thought of her survival as a miraculous sign and treated her as if she was some sort of god, but she knew better. From the time when she was a little girl and had been selected as a future high priestess of the temple and sent to live there she had been fed a steady diet of poison in small doses by the other priestesses, until she’d gained a small immunity to it, which is all that could be hoped for.
So far it was working, but what really was the point? They were dying as a people. Now they were without a leader.
Forsaken by their gods.
Everything was hopeless.
She brushed tears from her eyes with her good hand. She could do one thing!
She could stop this charade and groveling before inanimate objects!
She stood up and pushed over the holy serving table with its food offering. Picking up a candle staff she smashed away at tokens and demigods alike. Panting for breath she looked around the room at the mess that she had made of it. Taking her good hand she made a fist of it and shook it violently towards the ceiling.
“If you were real gods I would be dead right now! But I’m not! I will never serve you nor prostrate myself in front of you ever again!”
Zalisha stormed out of the small round temple and out into the refreshing air of her garden sanctuary. The moon shone brightly illuminating the city and the great wall that protected it in sharp relief.
The sky was full of bright shining stars. If her gods were not real how then had all this come to be?
She sank to her knees and looked up imploringly at the sky, “I don’t know what to do?” She screamed.
After a moment she screamed out of her very soul a plea for help, “Please!” And then she collapsed onto the ground of the garden sobbing brokenly at a complete loss at what to do.
She felt a breeze ruffle her long black hair. The wind grew stronger and she looked up from her sorrow. There shouldn’t be wind!
The night had been a clear one. She looked up and gasped out loud and scooted back in the grass away from the small temple in the garden as currents of air had begun to swirl around the small shrine temple and were picking up speed.
Terror-stricken she slid back further as she watched the swirling winds become a maelstrom of power. The temple disintegrated into pieces and swirled away out of view until there was nothing that remained. Not even the foundation of stone remained.
The winds dispersed upward and she saw solid dark clouds form overhead backlit by the moon and out of it came a column of fire that shot down and slammed into the ground where the temple had stood shaking the foundations of the city and the great wall itself.
Zalisha screamed and hid her face in her arms believing her death would be soon. The citizens of the city, strangers, and night sentries alike rushed from their dwellings or stared from their posts on the wall in stupefied horror at the temple on the hill, where the column of fire that reached into the heavens blazed forth into the night.
Zalisha drew in shaky breaths. Why had the fire from heaven not consumed her yet?
She looked up from the ground slightly and watched in fearful wonder as the flames swirled.
“Zalisha. Come closer.”
At the voice of authority every nerve in Zalisha went limp and she fell with her face to the ground a quivering mass of fear.
“Zalisha! Come!”
Slowly her body uncoordinated in her fear she began to crawl on her hands and knees toward the flames. She stopped when the voice spoke again.
“Zalisha do you know who I Am?”
Zalisha whispered brokenly, “No, but surely You must be God!”
“Well said, I AM. I am one God and there are no others before me. Zalisha all that you see I made. I formed man from the dust of the ground and I control all things and have all power and I am not limited in anything that I set my hands to accomplish. I am without beginning or end. I am eternal. These are only some of the names that I am called by; Yahwey, Jehovah, El Shaddai, El Elyon and the Creator of all life. Who do you say that I am Zalisha?”
“You are the Creator! I will serve no other than you even if it costs me my very life!”
“It has cost many who believe on my name their lives, but I am faithful to those who put their trust in me. They shall rise again as new creations and shall give me glory. Blessed are you among the masses of your people for your belief this night in the Almighty Creator. I find no deceit in your heart and I will bless you with My presence for as long as you remain faithful to Me.”
Zalisha cried out from the ground not daring to look at the column of flame before her, “Creator bless not only me but my people to! We are dying! Our hope is gone and we have no peace from our enemies! Without Your help we shall all perish!”
Zalisha waited to feel the heat of the fire upon her for her impudence to ask the Creator of the universe anything.
“I have seen the bondage of your people. I will send you back to your people with My words. My words are this. If your people will cease from worshiping and following after gods that are no gods and in turn worship and honor Me instead then I will make them My people too. As it is written draw near to Me and I will draw near to you. I will release you from your bondage and bring healing to your lands. I will fight your battles and the children of your people will be raised in peace not known by their fathers.”
Zalisha whispered, “Oh God let it be so!” She whispered into the ground overcome by the promise of the Creator’s words for her people.
“Zalisha now hear the warning I give you of what will happen if your people do not heed My words. The remaining habitations of your people will become a wasteland like the lost cities where only the wolves roam and there is no clean thing found within. There will not be one man left alive of your people’s lineage if your people fail to heed My words and forsake their idols and wicked ways. Now go and do not tarry in accomplishing the task that I have set before you as the day is fast approaching.”
Incredulously Zalisha felt the ground role under her and the sun six hours earlier than it should have crested the distant horizon. The column of flame disappeared back into the cloud, which in turn dissipated until there was just clear blue sky overhead.
Zalisha pushed off from the ground to stand and then surprised by the painless action she looked at her hand. The cut marks and the infection caused by the poison were gone!
There was no trace of the injury ever having occurred to her. That wasn’t all that was different. A strand of her hair was laying across the front of her shoulder, it was white as snow!
She looked at the risen sun and remembered the weight of her task for her people and she strode out of the garden and back towards the inward dwelling of the temple hill quickly. A man stood in her way. It was General Lasho.
As she drew near he knelt down before her, but she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back up and looked deeply into his fearful eyes, “General Lasho as you have forever been my father’s friend then be one to me now!”
His old eyes regarded her as he gave a curt nod, “Forever my Princess! What are your orders?”
“Gather the people! All of the people! The rich, the poor, the soldiers, the slaves, the children, the elderly, even the dying and gather them together in the fields so that I might talk with all our people at one time. You must do this with all speed and singularity of purpose! Now go!”
The crowd parted before her as she made her way through. The sound of the people was loud as they discussed everything that was happening.
The crowd grew quieter as they caught sight of the high priestess mounting the platform in the midst of her people. General Lasho caught her before she was all the way up.
“How are you going to speak to so many people clearly that they can hear you?”
“I will do what I can. It’s up to the Creator of the universe to do what I can’t.”
Puzzled he watched her go. Zalisha stood at the railing of the platform and faced her people.
“My people I have called you here today to tell you a truth!”
The sound of her own voice shocked her, but she continued. The great crowd gathered before her were suddenly as quiet as the grave, as each of them had heard her voice, as if she had been standing beside them.
“We have believed a lie! All of us have believed it, even worshiped it. We have worshiped gods made of our own hands that neither speak or think for themselves. We have denied the Creator of us all the homage that He alone deserves as the one true Creator of all life. The Creator appeared to me in the night out of the column of fire that many of you saw with your own eyes. He told me of the error of our people and He told me what would befall our people if we continue down our current path of misbegotten worship to idols that can not save us. Our remaining city will become as the lost city of Lancosa! Dead and lifeless will our people be if we do not heed the Creator’s words. Not one of us will survive!”
The crowd muttered fearfully among themselves.
“He also told me what would happen though if we forsook our false gods and the traditions of our culture that have enslaved our people for generations. He will heal our land and our people. Even as the mark of the Sorcerer is no longer on my hand do I believe that He will heal the malady that the Sorcerer has cursed us all with!”
She held her hand up as she said that and she heard the surprised gasps from all those close enough to see that her hand had been healed.
“He will give us victory over our enemies and our children will know peace!”
A voice rang out from the audience, “Don’t listen to her! The gods will come down upon us this day if we let her blasphemy go unpunished!”
There were echoing calls throughout the crowd and soon there was a mob pressing against the ranks of the soldiers General Lasho had stationed around the platform.
“Silence!” Zalisha’s voice echoed so loudly in everyone’s ears that many put their hands to them out of pain.
“Fools did you not feel the world move under your feet and the sun rise while it should still be night? Did you not see the column of fire stretched up into the clouds? Can you not see the healing done to this hand that was beset by the same poison that killed an entire royal family in a night?”
Another voice rang out, “The gods are angry with us because of your blasphemy! Seize her!”
The mob pressed harder against the soldiers.
“Very well! Since you have such great faith in your god’s let us put them to the test!”
The crowd went still at her words.
“I need two people who have faith in that my words are true to join me on this platform.”
The crowd looked among themselves. General Lasho stepped forward followed by his son.
As they made their way up the platform Zalisha addressed the mob at its base, “Does a thousand of you against one of us sound like a fair enough test? Gather three groups of a thousand each, one to represent the god of land, another to represent the god of water, and another to represent the god of fire.”
The three companies formed and the crowd moved back from them looking curiously at the platform to see what would happen next.
“Alright people of the land pray to your god to cause the boards of this stage to open and for the ground to swallow up General Lasho. You people of water pray that his son will be drowned in water even as he stands here on this platform. And finally you people of fire if you believe that I am guilty of blasphemy against the gods pray down fire from heaven to consume me where I stand!”
As the people started to pray a voice rang timidly out from one of the groups, “What if nothing happens?”
The voice giver was immediately pummeled by those around him.
Zalisha responded, “I can well see how you would come to ask such a question, for what have the gods we’ve prayed to and made sacrifices to done for us? If your gods do not answer you and mine does not see fit to intercede on my part than you have my permission to kill me in whatever way you see fit, as I do not want to live to see the folly of my peoples destruction!”
Excited at their win-win proposition the members of the three groups through themselves into pleading for their gods to act on their behalf. Time passed and nothing happened and the groups grew more violent in their pleas.
“Should we give them more time?” Zalisha asked the crowd at large.
An older man rose his fist into the air, “No!”
His cry was picked up by others in the crowd.
The group members began to yell, “We need more time!”
“More time!” Screamed Zalisha.
“In the last one hundred years of our kingdom we have lost over half of our people and two thirds of our land! Our people are dying under a cursed disease and the royal family was killed in a single night and you want to give the gods more time to act on our behalf? Enough! Creator of all life, if your servant has found any pleasure in Your eyes reward these three groups with the folly of their beliefs!”
Before her words had time to dissipate the ground shook beneath their feet hard enough to cause Zalisha to grab onto the railing to keep her footing.
The land beneath the people of the land god disappeared as they fell into the void. Their screams of fright were abruptly cut off as they were swallowed up by the ground.
A column of water fell from the heavens out of the clear blue sky to land on top of the second group. The impact of the water alone would’ve been enough to kill. The water splashed upwards carrying its victims, but acted as if it was contained within a clear sided box. Not one drop of water splashed onto the surrounding crowd.
The crowd of people were to shocked by what they were seeing to even move out of the way if they had wanted to. The invisible box spilled out on the one side and swirled into the void left in the ground by the first group and filled it. The eyes of the crowd swiveled to the last group knowing their fate even as flames licked out of nowhere to consume the third group up in a scorching inferno.
The flames having achieved their objective poured out along the ground like molten lava and burnt up the standing water in the pit. There was a rumbling of the ground once more followed by a great shaking.
When the shaking stopped and the dust settled the field was as flat as it had been before. A fact not immediately noticed as an entire people were already on their knees begging for their lives and forgiveness.
Eventually a peace came over the crowd and they began to talk among themselves asking questions like “What do we do now?” “How do we serve the Creator?” “How do we please Him?”
Zalisha listened and then spoke. “We should do only what we know the Creator would want of us and wait for further instruction as to what we don’t know lest we should make a mistake and be worthy of punishment by our Creator worse than those who have already perished.”
She paused and the people waited, “Destroy all evidence of the idols we have served and the false traditions we have observed in accordance with the folly of our false beliefs. For the Creator whom we now serve is One and there are no others before Him.”
Of one accord her people roared their approval and each ran to his or her own home to accomplish the task of removing the stain of their former unpure beliefs.
The sun stood still as the natural progression of day and night righted back on course due to the fast forwarding of the previous night.
While the day remained the people of the Eastern Kingdom of one accord destroyed everything they could find of their false beliefs. Temples and shrines burned and monuments and ornamentation were smashed into dust, nothing remained of the reproach of false belief.
As darkness fell the people returned to the plain exhausted from their efforts and the emotions of the long day and fell into a deep sleep. Many of them were healed during the night of ailments and their peace was not disturbed as it so often was by the sickness of the Sorcerer that afflicted their entire people and often gave them nightmares.
Zalisha got up off her bed and walked down the darkened halls of the palace. She felt as if she was dreaming and what was happening was not real.
She made her way outside to a private garden towards the place where the little temple had been. She sat down on the grass and waited not sure why she was here or even if she was, perhaps all this was a dream.
“Well done thou good and faithful servant!”
Hearing the voice she fell to her face, but she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder urging her to get up.
“Come walk with me for a while and I will show you in part what is to be.”
She looked up and saw a man, “Are you the Creator?”
He smiled and said, “As it is written if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”
Puzzled she looked at him.
He explained further, “I am the Creator’s Son and yet I and the Spirit of the Creator and the Creator are One.”
She nodded trying to understand and the man laid a calming hand upon her shoulder, “It is all right. Do not worry for your lack of understanding. My Father is sending you and your people a teacher from across the seas that will help teach and be used of my Father’s Spirit to bring understanding to your people. The faithful step of your people today has issued in a time of hope and reconciliation for the people of this land such as they have never known before.”
She stood and He gave His arm to her to hold as He led her through the garden now devoid of any tokens of her former beliefs.
“What shall I tell the people? We all want to know more.” She asked softly.
“There hunger shall be filled and their cup will overflow and your land will be filled with good things, if your people continue in their desire to know more of the Creator and serve Him in all their ways. The teacher I am sending will show you the path of righteousness by the use of the Holy Scriptures. Through understanding of the words of My Father you will know how to live and discover more of the ways of the Creator.”
A little time passed as they walked, “When will the teacher come?”
He looked at her, “The Spirit of the Creator that will lead you into all understanding and the unlocking of mysteries is already here and at work. It was His strength and words that filled you and came out of you this past afternoon, as you willingly contended for the future of your people. Your obedience to the Creator even at the risk of your own life shall not go unrewarded. The teacher who is coming, while he will do many great things for your people, he is also especially meant just for you.”
Zalisha’s eyes flew wide as she stopped and looked at Him and stuttered out, “I..... I don’t understand? For me?”
His gaze was tender as he patted her hand, “Yes, as I said he will do great and wonderful deeds on behalf of the Creator for your people, but he is also a man worthy of great reward and so the Creator has given him you. Both of you have asked for so little in life so far and God has decided to give you much in return. Together you will rule your people and if you remain faithful you will see great change in your land and happiness in your heart.”
Zalisha nodded and swallowed over the foretelling of her future, “What do I do?” She asked ready to do her part, as what He said must surely be the only thing to be done.
She hadn’t realized that she had lowered her head and that her face had become flushed. A finger from a scarred hand brought her chin up and she couldn’t help that a couple of tears had popped out from the corners of her eyes.
She was scared. She was in the presence of the Creator’s Son, as spokesperson for her entire nation. She didn’t want to make a mistake.
All that was stressful enough and now she learned that she was to be given to a stranger from across the sea!
“Zalisha do not be afraid, but only be faithful and see what the Creator will do on behalf of your nation and you.”
She nodded trying her best. “Can I know when he is coming?” She asked hesitantly.
“Soon. He is not coming alone. His brother will come too. They are both the sons of one of my most faithful servants. One is a warrior the other a teacher. The warrior will free the people of this land from the captivity they are held by. He is richly blessed by My Father and you will do all that he asks of you. His brother will do with words what the Spirit gives him to do and will bring freedom of the spirit and understanding of the Creator’s ways among your people, even as his brother will bring freedom by the sword and his strength of character. Two peoples shall be freed, but a third people shall be made greater than them both and yet you will all be one people. Guardians forever of the truth of God’s word. When your teacher comes you will know him even though you have never met him. You will lay the crown of your father at his feet and the kingship of your people and you will both be his. You will rule your people together and your family line will continue and not be broken off. You both will aid his brother and the work that my Father has for him. Do you understand all this Zalisha?”
“Yes.”
Zalisha’s eyes opened as the morning sunlight filtered into her room. She got up from the bed remembering the dream as if it was still happening and knew that it was going to happen.
She rested a hand on the corner of the window and gazed out at her people’s land and the sea beyond. He would be coming soon.
She would make sure that all was in readiness for him and his brother’s arrival to her land, but whether or not her heart would be ready she was not sure. What manner of men would these two brothers be?
She had known that there lay a larger body of land off to the Northeast. That was where they had come from long ago. Legend had it that when her people were brought to this world that they had not been well treated because of differences in their ancestry and appearance by the others of this world.
It was said that the great lord Ta’lont known as Tadias had not been happy with the treatment of the survivors of Berniam at the hands of his own kind. He had relocated the people of Berniam to these shores and forbid any of his own kindred from following.
That had been long ago. Had the people of the other lands changed in how they thought of her people any?
Time would tell what manner of men these two brothers would be. Her whole body started shaking suddenly and she held onto the window frame to keep from falling as she bit her lip to fight off the pain.
Not all her ailments had been cured then. She had hoped so, but apparently the Sorcerer’s curse on her people was still in effect, but maybe soon her people could be free of it to. She hoped so