Immortal (21 page)

By the time they made it to Golgotha, Agios was staggering, and Krampus—though decidedly weaker—was trying to support him. Agios felt half blind, unable to see clearly. A dense fog had risen around him, brought on by terror and disbelief. What if he couldn't fulfill his promise? What if it was already too late? He looked at Krampus and croaked, “Philos, why doesn't he free himself ?”

Krampus gave him a sideways glance. “Philos?”

Not Philos. Why did I say Philos?
With an effort, Agios focused his eyes and his mind. “Krampus,” he murmured. “Krampus.”

His friend pulled him forward. “Come. I help.”

He can barely walk, and he's supporting me. I'm failing him! Failing Krampus, failing Jesus!

In the distance the execution party had climbed to the top of the hill. The Romans had prepared everything, working with their usual lethal efficiency. Within a few moments a cross rose, then another to its left and a third to its right. Men had been nailed to all three. Agios wiped his eyes and led Krampus to a place where they could stand on a boulder.

Agios's heart felt as though it would burst. At the foot of the center cross knelt a woman whom he could recognize even at a distance. She was older and bent, but the humble slant of her head and the curve of her lovely profile were burned in his mind.

Mary
.

“It's Jesus. It's really him.” Agios's voice cracked around a sob. He had hoped for a different outcome, for a last-minute reprieve, anything. He clenched his fists, ready in his anger to fling himself off the boulder and fight his way to the cross. He would—what? Defeat them all, help Jesus down? One man?

Krampus made a sound in the back of his throat and Agios turned his attention to his immediate surroundings. Ranks of Roman soldiers hemmed in the crowd. Some of them walked through, dispersing groups, shoving men and menacing them with spears and swords.
The tyrants truly fear rebellion
, Agios thought. As the soldiers pushed back, lashing out at people who moved too slowly, Krampus drew his turban lower on his head. He looked down at the earth and whimpered like a beaten dog, like a child whose heart had been broken.

Yet Agios couldn't comfort his friend, not now, not at this moment.
I allowed myself to hope—for the first time since I lost my son, I allowed myself to hope!
And, then, he admitted something even more painful:
I saw him for myself. I
believed.

Agios climbed down from the rock and took Krampus by the arm. Without a word he pushed his way through the crowd, desperate to get closer to Jesus, to look in his eyes and see what was written there. If Jesus so much as nodded, Agios would explode. He was still strong, his body muscled. His favorite carving knife was in his belt. It wasn't a weapon, but it would suffice.

When only a handful of men stood between them and the cross where Jesus hung, Agios found he couldn't take another step. He wanted to raise his eyes and finally see the Teacher face-to-face, but his heart was as heavy as a millstone in his chest, his feet rooted to the ground. Krampus wept silently, and as Agios stared at the trampled earth he realized that the soldiers were dividing up Jesus's clothes by casting lots.

They can't do this. He is the Messiah!
Agios thought.
He knew, he knew with all his soul. Jesus is the only one who can heal my son Krampus! Only he! It's my duty to protect Jesus in exchange for his healing! I know! I know! He is the Messiah, he is!

Then, as if something evil were slyly whispering in his ear, came the thought
Is he? Is he, really?

So much in Agios's life had been a lie—the belief that he could protect Weala and his children, the thought that wine would ease sorrow, the idea that frankincense would bring wealth and ease to his family.
Don't let this be a lie, too! Let this man Jesus truly be the Messiah! Let him work a miracle now—

Then from the centermost cross came the voice Agios had grown to love: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Agios caught his breath.
Hung in agony, on a tree, and still on his mission!
It couldn't end with the Messiah nailed to a cross, hanging on a tree—his own son dead on a tree—Agios pushed forward. “Rabbi!” he called, and a Roman soldier thrust a menacing sword at him. It caught him on the face, just missing his left eye, and he fell back.

“Father!” Krampus said, catching him.

Furious, Agios shook his head, blood dripping. The slash started at the bridge of his nose and cut diagonally across his left cheek. He ripped a piece of his sleeve off and pressed it to the wound. Reached for his carving knife—

Krampus caught his arm, and he looked into the big man's eyes. “Forgive,” Krampus mouthed without speaking aloud. “Not evil for evil.”

The anger left Agios. Jesus had looked into the eyes of the lowest sinners—the prostitute and the tax collector and even the demon-possessed—and had spoken love and forgiveness to them. And now Krampus, the most downtrodden of them all, spoke the same message.

Still, Agios believed there must be an end point to grace, a line that even such love and forgiveness would not, could not cross.

For love was all too simple, too idealistic and selfless and pure. The world was a dark and desperate place. Surely there was room in Jesus's kingdom for death by the sword—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Every man for himself and my people, my interests, my life above all others.

And yet Jesus looked with compassion on the very people who were killing him. He pleaded with the Father on their behalf, begging for the forgiveness of a sin that eclipsed them all. It defied everything.

In this kingdom, more violence would accomplish nothing.

Agios could hardly stand it. He had blood on his own hands, and though spilling it had felt necessary at the time—right, even—he was ashamed of his deeds in the presence of Jesus. The Teacher was silent even unto death.

Forgive
me
!
he wanted to cry.

But Jesus wasn't looking at Agios. He was talking to the man who hung beside him.

The criminal groaned, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Paradise
.

Agios couldn't bear another moment. He slid his arm around Krampus's waist and hauled his old friend through the people. The crowd parted for them, some sensing Agios's utter despair, some probably frightened of the deformed man.

“Stay!” Krampus begged. “Stay! Jesus is here!”

But Agios couldn't stay. His world was crumbling. Even the earth seemed to acknowledge the perversion of it all. The clouds that had threatened all day finally swallowed up the sun and it became so dark it was as if night had fallen hours early.

Chaos.

Darkness
.

Agios and Krampus stumbled through streets awash in weeping and savagery and rumors. The temple veil was torn. Jesus was a madman. He was a righteous man.

He was the Son of God
.

The earth shook, the rocks split, and even tombs broke open.

And in an abandoned side street, Agios and Krampus sat slumped against a wall and held on to each other as the world revolted. Jesus was an insurrectionist, but it was the earth itself that rebelled.

When it was over, Krampus lifted his head and swept a fine dusting of soot and stones from his brow. “It is finished,” he said, his voice breaking on the word.

It was finished, Agios was sure of that. Jesus was dead, and with him all the hope that was left in the world.
A lie. A lie! I served a lie!

“Come, son,” Agios croaked, stumbling to his feet. They had to get out of Jerusalem. They had to leave. Now. He doubted his own sanity could survive much longer in this place of death, destruction, and madness.

Agios didn't realize that Krampus wasn't following him until he was several strides down the empty street. When he missed his friend, he spun on his heel to command Krampus to come instead of lingering buried in his own sadness. They were strong men, and beneath his sorrow Agios was beginning to feel the bitter burn of anger.

But Krampus wasn't crying anymore. He slumped against the stone wall and was staring after Agios with a faraway look in his eye. Agios knew that look all too well.

Hurrying back, he fell to his knees and cradled Krampus's head in his hands. It was too much: the entire experience had been far too much for Krampus to take, and he was paying for it now. It had been mere minutes, but already Krampus's cheeks were ghostly, gray. His lips parted as he wheezed.

“This will pass,” Agios assured him, but a seed of panic had been planted in his heart. “This will pass and we'll go back to our hills. I'll buy more sheep. We'll never speak of Jesus again.”

Krampus tried to sit up straighter. “No,” he said. “No . . .”

Agios put his hands on Krampus's shoulders and pushed him down. “Rest,” he cautioned. “Don't try to move.”

But Krampus ignored him. He patted his garments, fumbling around as he writhed in desperation.

Agios burst out: “What! What do you want?”

Krampus lifted his hand. In his palm was the little manger, the baby curled in beautiful detail at the center. The wood had been rubbed to a sheen in the years that Krampus had held and loved it, caressing it every night before sleep with fingers that knew each detail by heart. Jesus's tiny hand was in the air, reaching. His eyes were open, looking at Agios.

“He's dead, son,” Agios said.

“Jesus live. He . . . heals. Heals me. I end here. I go with him.”

His mind is wandering. God, if you are real—if you are there—this is the cruelest of all your lies!

“No,” Agios said. “You're my friend—my son. You can't die now. You can't.”

“Not afraid,” Krampus said. “Remember, father.” He said something that Agios couldn't catch.

“Tell me again!”

“Believe,” Krampus said. And then he exhaled.

“No,” Agios groaned. “No. Don't go.”

What had lived in the contorted body was fast leaving it. Krampus's wrinkles smoothed and his features seemed lit by a gentle glow. There was a thin smile on his lips, and in his last words a note of—joy?

“Believe.” Krampus's mouth formed the word, but there was no air in his lungs to give it voice.

Agios shook. How many years ago had he closed his real son's eyes? With trembling fingers, he gently shut Krampus's eyelids now. “My son,” he sobbed. Then, choking, he groaned, “My son.” He looked up at the dark sky and in a voice ragged with anguish cried, “Why?”

No voice from on high answered him. There came only a thin echo of his own despair:

Why?

Agios traveled with Krampus slung over the back of their mule. He had to tie his friend's body in place, looping straps around his arms so his fingers wouldn't graze the ground. It was a grisly task made even more difficult by grief. He felt like a shell, as brittle and empty as a husk that would soon disappear in the wind.

Believe
.

Agios couldn't. Not anymore.

Near midnight of their second day out of Jerusalem, Agios found the place. The night was dark, but a half moon cast enough light that Agios could just make out the familiar surroundings. He left Krampus and the mule at the foot of a cliff and climbed up a track that led through a narrow ravine. His pulse pounded, making the spear-cut on his face ache.

He heard a sound like thunder ahead, and when he turned the last bend he saw the abrupt end of the trail. Moisture in the air drifted in, cool on the skin. Agios inched forward and looked out. To his left a waterfall roared over a notch in the mountain rim. It fell thirty feet or more into a deep raging cauldron of white water, dashing high into the air again when the current met jagged rocks thrusting up from the riverbed.

They had found this place on one of their trading expeditions, and Agios had never forgotten the feeling it evoked.

He kicked a loose stone, and it tumbled down, vanishing in the mist and spray before striking the bottom. If he took one step—

Certain death.

He had a promise to keep.

It didn't take long for Agios to undo the leather straps that lashed Krampus to the mule. He gently lowered the body to the ground, then knotted the straps together to create a rope long enough for his purposes. He looped the leather and threw it over his shoulder. Kneeling down to take the pouch from Krampus's neck, he removed the little carved baby and put it in his friend's big hand. He closed the fingers over it and bound them tight with the thong.

With a grunt, Agios lifted Krampus, throwing him over his shoulder like a lamb. His friend wasn't nearly as heavy as he had once been, but the burden weighed down on Agios as he stumbled up the ravine to the cliff edge.