Finally, those blessed eyes opened again and found Eleazar’s face, as if searching for his soul. It made him recall another stare from another man, many, many years before.
Eleazar turned away in shame.
The soldiers gathered around the open stone sarcophagus in the center of the tomb. It had been carved out of a single block of limestone, large enough to hold three grown men.
But it would soon imprison only one small girl.
Pyres of myrrh and frankincense smoldered at each corner. Through their fragrance Eleazar smelled darker scents: bitter salts and acrid spices gathered according to an ancient Essene text.
All lay in terrible readiness.
Eleazar bowed his head one final time, praying for another way.
Take me, not her.
But the ritual called for them all to play their roles.
A Girl Corrupted of Innocence.
A Knight of Christ.
A Warrior of Man.
The robed leader spoke. His graveled voice did not waver. “What must be done is God’s will. To protect her soul. And the souls of others. Take her!”
But not all had come here willingly.
Azubah yanked free of her captors’ hands and sprang for the door, swift as a fallow doe.
Eleazar alone possessed the speed to catch her. He grabbed her thin wrist. She struggled against his grip, but he was stronger. Men closed in around them. She pulled the doll to her chest and sank to her knees. She looked so wretchedly small.
Their leader gestured to a nearby soldier. “It must be done.”
The soldier stepped forward and snatched Azubah’s arm, wrenching her doll away and tossing it aside.
“No!” she cried, her first word, forlorn, still sounding so much like a child, coming from her thin throat.
She tore free again and surged forth with furious strength. She leaped upon the offending soldier, locking her legs around his waist. Teeth and nails tore at his face as she knocked him hard to the stone floor.
Two solders rushed to his aid. They pulled the wild girl off and pinned her down.
“Take her to the sepulcher!” the leader commanded.
The two men holding her hesitated, plainly fearing to move. The child thrashed under them.
Eleazar saw that her panic was not directed toward her captors. Her gaze remained fixed on what had been stolen from her.
He retrieved the tattered figure of her doll and held it in front of her bloody face. It had quieted her many times when she was younger. He strove to block out memories of her playing in the clear sunshine with her laughing sisters and this doll. The toy trembled in his hand.
Her gaze softened into a plea. Her struggles calmed. She disentangled one arm from the men’s grasps and reached for the doll.
When her fingers touched it, her body sagged as she succumbed to her fate, accepting that escape was not possible. She sought her only solace, as she had as an innocent child, in the companionship of her doll. She did not want to go into the darkness alone. She lifted the figure to her face and pressed her small nose against its own, her shape a sigil of childlike comfort.
Waving his men away, he lifted the now-quiet girl. He cradled her cold form against his chest, and she nestled against him as she used to. He prayed for the strength to do what was right.
The block of stone gripped in his free hand reminded him of his oath.
To the side, their leader began the prayers binding the sacrifice above to the one below, using ancient incantations, holy words, and tossing pinches of incense into the small pyres. Atop the mountain, the rebels took their lives as the Romans broke their gates.
That tragic payment of blood would settle the debt here.
With the block clutched in his hand, Eleazar carried the girl the few steps to the open sarcophagus. It had already been filled, nearly to the rim, sloshing and shimmering. It was to act as a mikveh—a ritual immersion bath for those to be purified.
But rather than blessed water, wine filled this bath.
Empty clay jugs littered the floor.
Reaching the crypt, Eleazar peered into its dark depths. Torchlight turned wine to blood.
Azubah buried her face in his chest. He swallowed bitter grief.
“Now,” their leader ordered.
He held the girl’s small form against his own one last time and felt her release a single sob. He glanced at the dark doorway. He could still save her body, but only if he damned her soul, and his own. This terrible act was the only way to truly save her.
The highest-ranking soldier lifted the girl from Eleazar’s arms and held her over the open tomb. She clutched her doll to her chest, terror raw in her eyes as he lowered her to the surface of the wine. And stopped. Her eyes sought out Eleazar’s. He stretched a hand toward her, then pulled it back.
“Blessed be the Lord our God who art in Heaven,” the leader intoned.
Above them, all chanting stopped. She tilted her head as if she heard it, too. Eleazar pictured blood soaking the sand, seeping toward the mountain’s core. It must be done now. Those deaths marked the final dark act to seal this tomb.
“Eleazar,” the leader said. “It is time.”
Eleazar held out the precious stone block, its holy secret the only force strong enough to drive him forward. The stone block’s weight was nothing in his arms. It was his heart that held him trapped for a breath.
“It must be done,” the robed one said, softly now.
Eleazar did not trust his voice to answer. He moved toward the girl.
The commander released her into the wine. She writhed in the dark liquid, small fingers grasping the stone sides of her coffin. Red bled over its edges and spilled to the floor. Her eyes beseeched him as he placed the stone block atop her thin chest—and pushed. The stone’s weight and the shuddering strength of his arms forced the child deep into the wine bath.
She no longer fought, just held the doll tight against her chest. She lay as quiet as if she were already dead. Her mute lips moved, forming words that disappeared as her small face sank away.
What were those lost words?
He knew that question would haunt his everlasting days.
“Forgive me,” he choked out. “And forgive her.”
Wine soaked his tunic sleeves, scalding his skin. He held her inert form until the prayers of their leader ceased.
For what seemed an eternity.
Finally, he let go and stood. Azubah remained drowned at the bottom, forever pinned under the weight of the sacred stone, ever its cursed guardian. He prayed that this act would purify her soul, an ageless penance for the corruption inside her.
My little Azubah . . .
He collapsed against the sarcophagus.
“Seal it,” the leader ordered.
A limestone slab, lowered with ropes, ground into place. Men slathered the edges of the lid with a slurry of ash and lime to bind stone to stone.