Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name (32 page)

“This
rod was carved from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden when it was yet upon
the earth. Adam took it with him into the land of Nod, and it was passed down
to Shem, and Enoch left it on the earth when he was taken up into Paradise and
became the angel Metatron.”

He
held the staff over his head, pointing to the sky, and the firelight danced on
its dark surface as it did upon his smooth features, which were mesmerizing,
seemingly as carved as the wood, but alive with twinkling, dynamic eyes. He
looked like an ancient figure in his desert garb, a prophet, or a warlord
calling forth his band from the desert to attack.

The
Rider felt once again a sense of timelessness-when had the sun gone down? He
feared for a moment that Kabede would drive the sharpened end of the rod through
him. Instead, he held the staff before him in both hands and softened, once
more gentle, and leaned upon it, staring out into the darkening desert, at the
jutting rises of naked stone and the clouds of bats flitting out of their
cactus holes like dry leaves to find water.

“The Patriarch Abraham tended his flock with
it, and it was Isaac’s tent pole. Jacob bore it across the River Jordan.
Joseph’s brothers used it for his binding pole,” he said, slipping it behind
his back horizontally to demonstrate. “In Egypt, he carved the Ineffable Name
of God into it.” He slipped it in front of him once more and traced the Hebrew
letters etched into the staff with one finger. The Rider stared. That meant
that the phrase ‘To the extent of God, let these things come to pass’ was
acrostic. The first letter of each word spelled out one of the hidden names of
God.

“When
Joseph died, the Egyptians carved the head of a cat upon it,” he said, tapping
the marred knot on the end of it. “For nearly three hundred years they used it
to work their magic. Jethro saw this, and he stole it, and planted it in his
garden in Midian where it fed his crop and turned away the jackals. Only Moses
was able to draw it out, and for this, Jethro gave him his daughter Zepporah.
Moses and Aaron of course, used it to defeat Pharoah’s sorcerers, and to bring
forth water in the wilderness. It turned the battle against the Amalekites.
Joshua carried it into Israel, and Caleb took it with him to Judah and gave it
to Othniel, who used it to deliver Israel from Chushan-Rishathaim. It passed
through the hands of the Judges until it was lost at Eben-Ezer. The boy David
found it,” he said.

Smiling,
he knelt now beside the Rider and indicated two tiny holes near the knot. “He
made a sling of it, and used it to slay Goliath. Solomon made it his scepter,
and the Kings of Judah bore it as such until Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the
Temple. A pagan slave of Dahomey escaped with it to Great Zimbabwe and made
himself king for a time. He sharpened it into a weapon and carried it the
length and breadth of Africa, doing evil and good with it. Many years later it
was acquired by a Christian adventurer who, it is said, died using it to defeat
a great evil some two hundred years ago. Here, in this very land. I reclaimed
it from his tomb in the cliffs, and struck away the image of the cat-headed god
the Egyptians put upon it.”

The
Rider stared, in awe at the staff. Somehow, he knew at least, this part of
Kabede’s story was true. And if it was true, then everything the man said must
be true also. He seemed to feel the tramp of antiquity like a thudding in his
chest even as he stared at it, took in each little nick and imperfection, the
two thrilling holes Kabede had pointed out, and the name of God carved upon it.
This was the staff of Moses. Its power had sustained him, cured his food and
water. Its proximity, like a smoking candle repelling insects, had kept his
demons at bay.

Kabede
seemed to read his thoughts.

“It
is lucky I found you when I did. The staff has kept you alive.”

“Why
were you looking for me?”

“It
is known that you are the last,” Kabede said. “We learned of your guilt and of
your innocence, and of the Great Destruction of the American and European
enclaves. I knew that to fight Adon and his traitors we must be united. I only
took so long because I had to retrieve the staff first.”

“How
many are there in your enclave?”

“Only four, including myself.
And they remain hidden to
watch over other secrets which Adon and his kind must not find.”

Four.
But only four tzadikim remained. That meant…

“Then
you are a tzadik?”

“Yes,”
Kabede admitted. “All of the Balankab Enclave
are
. We
have no students at this time. But you know,” he shrugged, “it is only an
honorary title.”

There
was a certain peace to Kabede though. There was something in him that caused
the Rider to trust him the more he spoke. What if the old stories the students
whispered were true, that the tzadikim of the Sons of the Essenes really were
the true tzadikim? The Hidden Saints whose existence assured the continuance of
the universe? Yes, some had died, but it was ordained that thirty six tzadikim
always existed somewhere; new tzadikim arose in secret to replace the old.
Death had no authority over the righteous. He had never felt that he had met a
true tzadik. But this man…this strange young African…something was different
about him. Perhaps it was the Rider’s near death state clouding his judgment.
He must reassess the man when he had regained his own strength. It was written
that the Nistarim Tzadikim
were
hidden even from
themselves after all. He already claimed to have visited the Throne at the age
of nine…

“Then
we are alone,” said the Rider.

“How
can two be alone?” Kabede said. “Now you must tell me what you know. We
Balankab Sons have been cloistered in Aksum. The tzadikim of the Council of
Yahad failed to contact us, and all that we have learned we learned from
dreams. Tell me of Adon and what you know of him, and tell me of what you have
learned since the Great Destruction.”

The
Rider, against all higher, supposedly better judgment, did. Somehow, he trusted
the man. While Kabede boiled a simple stew over the fire with a pot from his
kit and ladled it into bowls, the Rider told him of Adon’s secret teachings,
his slow introduction of forbidden, non-Jewish knowledge into his curriculum
during his time at the Order. He told Kabede of his vision of the armies of
heaven and hell amassing for battle, and his decision to enlist in the Union
Army, of his breaking with the Order. He told of his discovery of Adon’s
betrayal, of the accusation by his German brothers of his having participated
in the slaughter of the San Francisco enclave, of his defense at Ein Gedi
before the Council of Yahad, and his expulsion.

He
told Kabede all about his long, fruitless search across Europe and the East,
and his return to America, where he had begun hearing of the Hour of the
Incursion and the Great Old Ones, and how Adon was a part of it somehow. He
related his botched encounter with Lilith that had left him
cursed,
how she had shared his true name with her children…

Here
Kabede stopped him.

“How
did Lilith know your true name?”

“She
claimed to have followed my life since the cradle.”

“No,”
Kabede said. “That is not possible. Your father was an Ashkenazi Hasid from
Poland and your mother’s people were Spanish Sephardim. When you were a boy you
were sick. They performed the shinnui
shem
to delude
Lilith, just as all traditional Jewish parents do with sickly infants by
custom.”

The
Rider swallowed. It was true. He had heard the story from his mother how they
had changed his name from Shlomo to Menasseh as a baby, when he had been struck
with a bad bout of fever. The rebbe had opened the Torah and renamed him the
first proper name he came across.
Genesis 51.
‘And
Joseph called the name of the first-born Manasseh: for God hath made me forget
all my toil, and
all my
father’s house.’ The shinnui
shem
. It was an old ritual meant to divert evil spirits’
attention by confusing them as to the identity of the child.

“How
did you know that?” the Rider stammered.

“I
told you, I am the Keeper of the Book of Life for our Order. If your parents
had not done this, the Order would never have allowed you to join.”

He
had never thought of it before, but the Sons of the Essenes probably wouldn’t
have accepted him had he had such a basic weakness in his spiritual armor. It
was a unique requirement even he had never considered. He wondered if the other
Sons had also gone through the shinnui
shem
.

But
of course, he would never know now.

“You
say that Lilith claimed neutrality in this supposed conflict?” Kabede asked.

“That
was what she told me.”

“She
lied,” Kabede said. “Someone must have told her your true name. She could not
have learned it otherwise.”

“Adon,”
the Rider said immediately. As the man who had brought him into the Essenes, he
had known his name.

“Yes,
that is my thinking,” Kabede agreed. “That night, she was not searching for
Adon for
you,
she was calling him to you. Had the
brothel not burned and you escaped, he and his minions would no doubt have come
for you.”

“Why
didn’t she set her demons on me earlier?
Why a trap?”

“Perhaps
Adon wanted to kill you personally, and Lilith in her anger, defied him. But
tell me again of this token the succubus gave you.”

The
Rider was reluctant to show it to Kabede. He felt again like a young student
trying to explain one of his heathen talismans before one of the old teachers.

Still,
he took the wooden rosette brothel token from his pocket and showed it to
Kabede.

Kabede
touched it and wrinkled his brow.

“This
is an infernal talisman of some sort. It bears the sigil of the Order of
Nehemoth.”

“It
was Nehema herself who gave it to me.”

“One of the Angels of Prostitution.
Daughter
to Lilith.
Its protection must have some price. No infernally forged
talisman can be entirely beneficial. You would do best to destroy it.” He
scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Why would she have given it to you?”

“I
know,” he said, taking it back and slipping it into his shirt pocket, “but it’s
kept me alive.”

“It’s
kept you alive, but it’s also kept you blind and powerless.”

“Nothing
can prevent that,” the Rider said. “They know my name.”

“I
may be able to remedy that. But first, continue.”

The
Rider told Kabede then of his encounter with one of Adon’s new pupils, and
Kabede was momentarily overcome by the man’s audacity (“It is unthinkable that
he taught our secrets to a heathen!” he raged), but his distress ebbed some
when the Rider told him how he had killed Sheardown, or rather, how Gershom
had. He lapsed into sad reflection on the Nazirite boy dead at Mazzamauriello’s
hand, but he went on. He told of the scroll, and the book of Zylac, and Adon’s
correspondence in the strange Tsath-Yo language.

Kabede
asked his permission to examine the scroll.

“It
is Egyptian” he said, when he had peered at it.
“A magical
text of some kind.
I do not know all these characters.”

Then
the Rider told him of the Elder Sign and the invisible thing in the cave on Elk
Mountain, and of Chaksusa and Shub-Niggurath, and Mauricio and the word of
power, Shambla-

Kabede
put his hand to the Rider’s mouth and warned him.

“Do not speak that word. It is detrimental for
a man to speak the language of another universe in this one.”

The
Rider continued then, and in this narrative there came an outpouring of nearly
hysterical confession. The Rider unburdened himself to Kabede what he had dared
not admit to himself.

“These
things…they terrify me. How can they be? I don’t know what I believe anymore…my
faith is smashed.”

“Why?”
Kabede asked innocently.

The
Rider stared, and waited. He had nothing else to say. He waited for words that
would comfort him, renew him. He waited for Kabede to heal his mind and his
faith as he had his body.

“You
are indeed Manasseh Maizel,” Kabede said after a bit. “The same man who stood
before the Throne of Glory and doubted. I was told of a man so adept at our
ways that he had taken the name “Rider’ forever for his own. A man I thought
greater than myself.”

“How
could I be greater?” the Rider croaked miserably. “You’re a yored merkabah. You
gained the Throne. Metatron turned me away. I wasn’t worthy.”

“I
was born already knowing the passages of heaven. I knew the hekhalots and the
names and signs of the angels before ever I saw them. You attained the same
heights with only your learning and your faith and your will. That is something
I have often wondered if I could do. But still, you do not live up to the name
you took. It is why Lilith has power over you now. You are not the Rider in
your heart.” He slapped his own breast for emphasis.