The Fifth Mountain

The boy barely moved; his lips were white, and his eyes were rapidly losing their glow.

“Pray to your One God,” the woman asked. “For only a mother can know when her son’s soul is departing.”

Elijah felt the desire to take her hand, to tell her she was not alone and that Almighty God would attend him. He was a prophet; he had accepted that truth on the banks of the Cherith, and now the angels were at his side.

“I have no more tears,” she continued. “If He has no compassion, if He needs a life, then ask Him to take me, and leave my son to walk through the valley and the streets of Akbar.”

Elijah did all in his power to concentrate on his prayer; but that mother’s suffering was so intense that it seemed to engulf the room, penetrating the walls, the door, everywhere.

He touched the boy’s body; his temperature was not as high as in earlier days, and that was a bad sign.

THE HIGH PRIEST had come by the house that morning and, as he had done for two weeks, applied herbal poultices to the boy’s face and chest. In the preceding days, the women of Akbar had brought recipes for remedies that had been handed down for generations and whose curative powers had been proved on numerous occasions. Every afternoon, they gathered at the foot of the Fifth Mountain and made sacrifices so the boy’s soul would not leave his body.

Moved by what was happening in the city, an Egyptian trader who was passing through Akbar gave, without charge, an extremely dear red powder to be mixed with the boy’s food. According to legend, the technique of manufacturing the powder had been granted to Egyptian doctors by the gods themselves.

Elijah had prayed unceasingly for all this time.

But nothing, nothing whatsoever, had availed.

“I KNOW WHY they have allowed you to remain here,” the woman said, her voice softer each time she spoke, for she had gone many days without sleep. “I know there is a price on your head, and that one day you will be handed over to Israel in exchange for gold. If you save my son, I swear by Baal and the gods of the Fifth Mountain that you will never be captured. I know escape routes that have been forgotten for generations, and I will teach you how to leave Akbar without being seen.”

Elijah did not reply.

“Pray to your One God,” the woman asked again. “If He saves my son, I swear I will renounce Baal and believe in Him. Explain to your Lord that I gave you shelter when you were in need; I did exactly as He had ordered.”

Elijah prayed again, imploring with all his strength. At that instant, the boy stirred.

“I want to leave here,” the boy said in a weak voice.

His mother’s eyes shone with happiness; tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Come, my son. We’ll go wherever you like, do whatever you wish.”

Elijah tried to pick him up, but the boy pushed his hand away.

“I want to do it by myself” he said.

He rose slowly and began to walk toward the outer room. After a few steps, he dropped to the floor, as if felled by a bolt of lightning.

Elijah and the widow ran to him; the boy was dead.

For an instant, neither spoke. Suddenly, the woman began to scream with all her strength.

“Cursed be the gods, cursed be they who have taken away my son! Cursed be the man who brought such misfortune to my home! My only child!” she screamed. “Because I respected the will of heaven, because I was generous with a foreigner, my son is dead!”

The neighbors heard the widow’s lamentations and saw her son laid out on the floor of the house. The woman was still screaming, her fists pounding against the chest of the Israelite prophet beside her; he seemed to have lost any ability to react and did nothing to defend himself. While the women tried to comfort the widow, the men immediately seized Elijah by the arms and took him to the governor.

“This man has repaid generosity with hatred. He put a spell on the widow’s house and her son died. We are sheltering someone who is cursed by the gods.”

The Israelite wept, asking himself, “O my Lord and God, even this widow, who has been so generous to me, hast Thou chosen to afflict? If Thou hast slain her son, it can only be because I am failing the mission that has been entrusted to me, and it is I who deserve to die.”

That evening, the council of the city of Akbar was convened, under the direction of the high priest and the governor. Elijah was brought to judgment.

“You chose to return hatred for love. For that reason, I condemn you to death,” said the governor.

“EVEN THOUGH YOUR HEAD is worth a satchel of gold, we cannot invite the wrath of the gods of the Fifth Mountain,” the high priest said. “For later not all the gold in the world will bring peace back to this city.”

Elijah lowered his head. He deserved all the suffering he could bear, for the Lord had abandoned him.

“You shall climb the Fifth Mountain,” said the high priest. “You shall ask forgiveness from the gods you have offended. They will cause fire to descend from the heavens to slay you. If they do not, it is because they desire justice to be carried out at our hands; we shall be waiting for you at the descent from the mountain, and in accordance with ritual you will be executed the next morning.”

Elijah knew all too well about sacred executions: they tore the heart from the breast and cut off the head. According to ancient beliefs, a man without a heart could not enter paradise.

“Why hast Thou chosen me for this, Lord?” he cried out, knowing that the men about him knew nothing of the choice the Lord had made for him. “Dost Thou not see that I am incapable of carrying out what Thou hast demanded of me?”

He heard no reply.

SHOUTING INSULTS AND HURLING STONES (#ulink_795f7518-d56a-52ae-a93a-1afc9e58b3c8), THE MEN and women of Akbar followed in procession the group of guards conducting the Israelite to the face of the Fifth Mountain. Only with great effort were the soldiers able to contain the crowd’s fury. After walking for half an hour, they came to the foot of the sacred mountain.

The group stopped before the stone altars, where people were wont to leave their offerings and sacrifices, their petitions and prayers. They all knew the stories of giants who lived in the area, and they remembered some who had challenged the prohibition only to be claimed by the fire from heaven. Travelers passing through the valley at night swore they could hear the laughter of the gods and goddesses amusing themselves from above.

Even if no one was certain of all this, none dared challenge the gods.

“Let’s go,” said a soldier, prodding Elijah with the tip of his spear. “Whoever kills a child deserves the worst punishment there is.”

ELIJAH STEPPED ONTO the forbidden terrain and began to climb the slope. After walking for some time, until he could no longer hear the shouts of the people of Akbar, he sat on a rock and wept; since that day in the carpentry shop when he saw the darkness dotted with brilliant points of light, he had succeeded only in bringing misfortune to others.

The Lord had lost His voices in Israel, and the worship of Phoenician gods must now be stronger than before. His first night beside the Cherith, Elijah had thought that God had chosen him to be a martyr, as He had done with so many others.

Instead, the Lord had sent a crow—a portentous bird—which had fed him until the Cherith ran dry. Why a crow and not a dove, or an angel? Could it all be merely the delirium of a man trying to hide his fear, or whose head has been too long exposed to the sun? Elijah was no longer certain of anything: perhaps Evil had found its instrument, and he was that instrument. Why had God sent him to Akbar, instead of returning him to put an end to the princess who had inflicted such evil on his people?

He had felt like a coward but had done as ordered. He had struggled to adapt to that strange, gracious people and their completely different way of life. Just when he thought he was fulfilling his destiny, the widow’s son had died.

“Why me?”

HE ROSE, walked a bit farther until he entered the mist covering the mountaintop. He could take advantage of the lack of visibility to flee from his persecutors, but what would it matter? He was weary of fleeing, and he knew that nowhere would he find his place in the world. Even if he succeeded in escaping now, he would bear the curse with him to another city, and other tragedies would come to pass. Wherever he went, he would take with him the shadow of those deaths. He preferred to have his heart ripped from his chest and his head cut off.

He sat down again, amid the fog. He had decided to wait a bit, so that those below would think he had climbed to the top of the mountain; then he would return to Akbar, surrendering to his captors.

“The fire of heaven.” Many before had been killed by it, though Elijah doubted that it was sent by the Lord. On moonless nights its glow crossed the firmament, appearing suddenly and disappearing just as abruptly. Perhaps it burned. Perhaps it killed instantly, with no suffering.

AS NIGHT FELL, the fog dissipated. He could see the valley below, the lights of Akbar, and the fires of the Assyrian encampment. He heard the barking of their dogs and the war chants of their soldiers.

“I am ready,” he said to himself. “I accepted that I was a prophet, and did everything I did as best I could. But I failed, and now God needs someone else.”

At that moment, a light descended upon him.

“The fire of heaven!”