The Fall - By Chana Keefer

CHAPTER Twenty-Six

Death



When he came to, he heard voices and the trickle of water. For a reason he chose not to recall, he kept his eyes shut.

“Here, drink,” Eve’s voice spoke.

A loud gulp caused Rapha’s tongue to flare with thirst. “What about him?” Sheatiel’s voice whispered. “Is he alive?”

“Yes. He still breathes.”

“How did we come to be here? There is no path.”

“He carried us.”

“That is impossible!”

“Yes,” Eve answered again. “How are you?”

“Better than him, from the look of things,” Sheatiel answered with a hint of humor in her voice.

The weight of hopelessness on Rapha’s mind lessened.

After a pause, Sheatiel spoke again. “I prefer him this way, weak and sleeping.”

“He has saved you time and again. Surely you do not still fear him.”

“His kind bring only pain.” With those words all was dark once more.

“There is not another of his kind, as far as I know.”

“There are many… and they bring pain.”

The despair of the girl’s past wrapped around his exhausted mind like dense smoke. It was worse than fearing physical death. This torture chained from within. Rapha struggled against the suffocating darkness. He threw an arm over his eyes as if to shut out her pain.

“Rapha!” Eve was beside him. “Drink.”

Like a weak child he obeyed, feeling each cool drop of water flow through his body.

“Give me your hands.”

He lifted heavy arms, wincing as wetness set fire to his fingertips. When he tried to open his eyes, they remained shut as if stout thread had sewn his lids.

“Patience, Rapha.” She wiped at his face until he was able to open them to the dim light.

He moved to sit up but his body screamed in protest. Instead he turned his head to look around. Yes, the cliff above was sheer. It appeared a large chunk of rock had fallen from the pathway since he had last ventured to this cavern. No wonder they had lost their footing in the dark.

“How did you get to the water?” he asked Eve.

With a smug smile she pointed down. “Look.”

As if a giant hand had positioned them, huge rocks lay off the side of their ledge forming an almost perfect staircase down to the stream. In amazed silence he studied the place above where he had clung, realizing Eve’s feet must have been dangling a mere hand’s breadth from the highest rubble. His greatest, Herculean effort, and they hadn’t even been in real danger. He was ridiculous, covered in dirt with most of the skin from his hands and legs left behind on the rocks. How Lucifer would gloat to witness this humiliation!

As if the fallen angel whispered in his ear, Rapha heard what he would say. “I told you it would come to this, old friend,” the words hissed, “you wear their filth well,” Lucifer’s cackling laughter leapt from Rapha’s memory with such force he could hear it pounding from the cave walls like a fresh avalanche.

He curled into a ball and covered his bloodied head with his arms.

“Pa-the-tic.” That single word pounded over and over.

How could he fight truth? Why should he? He felt pulled into gaping jaws and the wounds on his body awoke as if each had become hungry insects devouring him inch by inch.

“Why cry out to Adonai? Even the Most High mocks you.”

Where was Adonai when Rapha had hung from the cave wall in fear? Surely this shame was His will. Again Lucifer’s laughter filled his ears. “Behold! The angel who became a worm!”

His body was quivering, aching, burning. He was helpless. He was drowning in torment. Please, Adonai. His mind screamed though his tongue formed only gasps and groans. Slay me!

A splash of cold hit his face and his eyes flew open in surprise. Sheatiel was there, eyes wide and determined. “The voices in your head. Resist them!” she commanded. “They light fires and weave spells. They devour with thoughts.”

“The whore knows nothing,” the vicious words accompanied a vision of Sheatiel, eyes vacant as from too much wine, body swaying provocatively. The image scraped across his soul, arousing both desire and disgust. Was she simply Lucifer’s latest guise?

“Whore,” he whispered, barely realizing the word had left his lips.

Whack! Her palm struck his face.

But as he grasped the offending wrist while it was still in motion, he knew this was not his old enemy. Humility and shame filled Sheatiel’s eyes—two things of which Lucifer was incapable. Rapha dropped her hand but still he felt its warmth, on his face as well as his fingers.

“Come, Sheatiel,” Eve took the trembling girl by the shoulders and shot Rapha a murderous look.

But Sheatiel, pale beneath her burnished skin, resisted Eve and held his gaze. “I am what you say.” The dark circles under her eyes deepened as she spoke. “But I know what torments you. They devoured me long ago. Once hope is gone you are their slave. Cling to what is good, no matter how small.”

Without pause she addressed Eve. “Please help me to the water.”

Then the two women left him and descended into the dimness toward the chattering stream. Alone on his ledge he wrestled with the evil that assaulted his mind. Finally, by thinking of the cool water cleansing Sheatiel’s stain, he knew peace.


In the coming days Rapha led Eve and Sheatiel, foraging for their food by cover of night, then retreating to the cave’s protective shadows while the sorcerous evil scoured the land, caused the ground to rumble and continued to taunt Rapha, calling him out, pressing images of suffering women and children on his mind.

“You hide because you are weak,” the voice echoed over and over in Rapha’s mind but Adonai’s will held him back. Repeatedly in prayer he was convinced his most important mission was to keep the women safe. No visiting angel appeared to assure him but his heart was certain.

At night, the images almost drove Rapha to madness as the screams of women and children filled his heart. If not for the undeniable mandate from Adonai, he would have stumbled out of the caves for a daring, most likely ineffective, rescue. As it was, darkness would press in, surrounding them with the maddening pursuit until the breath of evil brushed their cheek and whispered death in their ears. But they had learned. Eve and Sheatiel would draw close to Rapha as he painted a picture of Adonai’s glory with his words, sometimes whispering heaven’s language when the words of men fell short. Therefore, though their bed was cold stone and fear hovered, they learned the art of weaving peace. And when Rapha lay in the darkness, watchful and cramped with the women drawing close to his warmth and their breathing growing deep and steady, he realized he no longer felt alone.


Finally, a day dawned when the brooding presence was gone and they could emerge, grateful for the sun’s warmth. But as they drew closer to their former home, dread clutched their hearts.

At the borders of their land, carrion fowl fed on two fallen warriors. Why so few? Why were the majority of their traps undisturbed?

At the grove of olive trees, Rapha finally saw evidence that brought a brief smile. No, their attackers had not been caught off guard at their borders. But they had underestimated Kal. The wily old warrior had lured dozens of the enemy into the open arms of his trip wires and booby traps, where explosions and pits with spears had greeted them.

Every structure was a burned-out shell but, thankfully, no bodies were found among the ashes.

However, as Rapha followed Kal’s trail that led toward a large rock, the stench of death was strong. Several enemy soldiers had fallen there along with… Rapha parted the bushes to discover, not Kal, but a mystery. There lay the body of a frail woman, stabbed in the heart, her arms folded over her chest as if prepared for a grand funeral.

Rapha called Eve who moaned and knelt beside the woman’s body. “This is Moria. She is finally released from her pain.” Eve looked toward the dwellings. “But she could not walk. How did she get here?”

Rapha studied the ground, “She must have been carried. Look. Kal’s steps lead away.”

“Follow them. Perhaps he is still alive. I will see to Moria’s remains.”

So Rapha followed a meandering path of the enemy’s feet. The only evidence that he was also following Kal’s footsteps was the occasional trapped or crushed enemy.

The site of Kal’s last stand was a rock at the end of that valley. Rapha was sure the final volley had been an amazing site. At least twenty of the enemy lay pierced by Kal’s arrows and a circle of warriors had fallen to his sword.

But, it had not been enough.

In the middle of their fields that had been picked clean by the enemy, Rapha found Kal, impaled and burned on a tall wooden stake. Rapha crumpled to his knees. “I am so sorry, my friend,” he whispered as tears ran down his cheeks and he collapsed to the ground.

A loud “Squawk!” interrupted Rapha’s pain and he looked toward the sound to discover his raven friend perched on Kal’s shoulder. “Squawk!” the bird said again, then flew to the ground before Rapha, taking a few waddling, determined steps forward as he flapped and bobbed his head. Obviously, something was on his mind.

Rapha wiped a sleeve across his face and nodded encouragement to the bird who stepped closer. He obeyed the bird’s direction and laid a hand on its sleek feathers.

Once more he was plunged into Kal’s last hours but this time, rather than the sorcerous connection that had revealed only despair, it was related through the bird’s pragmatic eyes.


He was soaring over the hills on the outskirts of their domain. A dark mass of men was approaching from the west.

“The only safe entrance is between those two stones,” the man at the front said. “One long line and stay quiet.”

The wind whispered through his wings as the bird looked for the short man with white feathers on his head. The man was not in his bed. Bright points of fire were approaching the fields when he located the one called Kal standing among the fruit trees with the dog at his side.

The bird landed a safe distance from the growling dog and croaked the news of men approaching.

“How I wish I could understand you. Are you telling me we’re being invaded?”

The bird bobbed his head.

“I knew it! If you can understand, friend, alert Rapha,” Kal said before running toward the dwellings. “You old fool,” Kal muttered as he ran, the dog at his heels. “Feeling it all day and hesitating.”

The bird flew to Rapha’s cave in time to see rocks falling to block the entrance.

By the time he descended again to the valley, Kal was leading a group of mostly women and children toward the mountain behind which the sun appeared each day.

“Where are we going?” a small boy asked in a loud whisper.

“You will escape into the hills,” Kal whispered back.

“You, too?”

Kal ruffled the child’s hair and smiled, “Not yet.”

“Elanor,” Kal addressed the woman at the boy’s side, “straight through the pass and over. You know where the provisions are. Do not look back. Adonai is with you.”

The woman nodded and took the boy’s hand.

“Eden. Go with them!” Kal pointed toward the group moving off into the darkness. The dog hesitated, whined, but then obeyed.

Kal ran back toward the settlement. In the small dwelling closest to the well he entered the dark doorway and came out a moment later carrying a frail woman, Moria.

“You can stay in the cave until it is safe,” he said.

The woman murmured something the bird could not hear.

Kal chuckled, “Yes, I am an old fool but I’m still getting you to that cave.”

A flaming “whoosh” sailed over their heads and struck the thatch of the neighboring dwelling. Kal ducked his head and ran faster. Suddenly he stopped as out of the shadows two young boys and a girl appeared with Eden at their heels.

“What are you doing here?”

“We came back to help you,” the taller boy replied. “We know where the trip wires are. We can fight.”

“Tess!” Kal addressed the girl. “You run into those trees right now or I’ll kill you myself!”

The girl took one look at Kal’s angry face and ran.

“But she’s only seven and she’s scared of the dark,” the taller boy spoke again.

“Tonight the darkness is her friend. All right, Eli, Jason, you man the rocks. Then get out!”

“No.” Eli stood with his fists clenched. “You taught us to fight, now you want us to run?”

There was a scream in the trees followed by harsh voices.

“Tess!” Kal gasped then commanded, “Tess! Nose, eyes, ears, now!”

There was a man’s yell, “Ow!” followed by a string of curses and, “Where’d she go?”

“Good girl,” Kal breathed. “Eli! Go!” He hissed and the boys shot away into the darkness.

Then more arrows flew through the air and lit the dwellings while Kal ran beneath an arching branch and behind a large rock where he deposited the woman in his arms onto the ground, “I’m sorry, Moria,” Kal pulled out the blade from his belt, “I will be back if I can.”

But the woman grabbed Kal’s hand that held the blade and pulled it to her chest. “Please don’t ask this of me,” Kal begged.

Moria put her other hand on the blade’s handle, “I am old enough to be your mother,” she said. “What would you do for her?”

The orange glow of torches lit the place where Kal knelt and a harsh voice said, “There! By the rock!”

Kal kissed the woman’s forehead and, with a sob, plunged in his knife. “Go with Adonai. I follow soon,” he whispered as he pulled out his blade and laid her on the ground.

He hesitated a split second, then his knife came down on a cord beside the rock. There was a whizzing noise as the arched tree beside him shot back. Shouts of pain and thuds of bodies followed along with more curses.

From beneath the rock Kal extracted his bow and a quiver of arrows.

Off he ran, slashing at branches and singing, “Incha, bincha, it’s a sincha!” at the top of his lungs. He led the enemy into hidden pits. Some were snatched up and dangled by a cord on their foot. Others followed Kal into a low-lying area and sunk down into clinging mud while he hopped safely across.

Closer to the mountain he led them, “Come lads! Don’t give up!” he taunted. The rocks rumbled behind him and more cries of pain filled the darkness.

“Good job, boys,” Kal breathed.


But always there were more. Finally, as the sky became tinged with gray, he was surrounded and shot his arrows, bringing down an enemy with each one and several more with his blade as the men closed in. In the midst of his fury Kal swung and dodged, oblivious to his many wounds. But when they dragged Eli and Jason into the light, Eden leapt, snarling, out of the brush and dove for the throat of the man who held them. The man dropped the boys and fell as Eden shook her head back and forth, ripping and tearing with vicious precision until one of the men pierced her with his sword.

Eden yelped and crumpled to the ground.

Kal released a primal yell and slashed his way through the surrounding men. An arrow slammed into his shoulder but he pushed forward and the whole group moved with him, slashing and stabbing while his own sword fell again and again.

Finally, with his back to a large rock he paused, panting as he faced them. “I have a secret,” he said in a sing-song voice.

Kal wagged his hindquarters and opened his bulbous eyes wide, “My father is King!” The arm with the arrow hung limp but Kal raised the other in acknowledgement as the men guffawed.

“The king of what? Fools?” One of the men shouted.

“He’s mad!” another jeered as they laughed and beat their blades against their wooden shields.

Kal stomped his foot with slow purpose, gradually increasing the pace until the blades joined his rhythm. The stomping became a hop, then a hop with a kick. Gradually the beat increased and Kal’s dance became more vigorous until he was cavorting like an agile monkey as the men gradually increased the speed, their whistles and laughter growing louder as he began to spin, his blade clearing a wide circle about him.

Suddenly Kal tripped and sprawled to the ground, gasping. Blood was dripping from his nose and mouth and seeping through his clothing in the many places he had been pierced.

“What? No more dancing, old man?” the leader stepped forward and kicked Kal in the stomach.

A fresh stream of blood gushed from Kal’s mouth. He spat then chuckled weakly, “Bow to your king, fool.”

Once more the leader kicked and his men joined in, punching, spitting and beating Kal with their fists.

Finally the leader leaned over Kal’s blood-covered body and said, “Come, oh king, let us worship you.”

He dragged Kal off the ground, and to the tree that some of the warriors had already stripped of its branches and hewn to a point at the top. Two groups of men climbed onto each other’s shoulders forming two columns and handed up Kal’s limp form as the rest yelled and beat their shields. Then they shoved Kal onto the tree, drowning out his cry of pain with their noise.

Soon, however, their shouts faltered.

“He is smiling,” one of the younger warriors observed.

“Mad to the end,” another said.

Suddenly the leader looked around, “Where are they? The boys?”

The others jostled and gazed about in confusion.

Eli, Jason, and Eden were gone.

The leader looked back to Kal’s smiling face and gave the command, “Push those branches beneath him.”

Soon flames licked up the shorn tree. But just as the fire reached Kal’s skin and he threw back his head with renewed agony, an arrow thudded into his chest and Kal’s head dropped forward.

Rage flooded the leader’s face and his head whipped toward the young soldier who had delivered the merciful bowshot. “He had suffered enough.” The soldier stated then stood his ground as the leader glared at him with murder in his eyes.

At last the leader’s gaze faltered and he backhanded one of the gawking warriors beside him. “Don’t just stand there. Tend wounds! Find food! Move!”

As the others turned to obey, the leader glanced over his shoulder toward the young soldier who still stood looking up at Kal’s mangled form.


Rapha took his hand off the bird’s head and it stepped back with a satisfied “Caw!”

“Thank you, my friend,” Rapha said.

The bird bobbed his head then flared his wings to resume his watchful perch on Kal’s shoulder.

Rapha looked up toward Kal’s blackened body.

With a cry of rage, Rapha shoved the tree with all his might, never pausing to remember that his strength to push trees had waned. But, whether from the power of his grief or due to the burning of the trunk, the tree broke at its base and Rapha was able to remove Kal from it.

For a full day and night Rapha did not move from the body of his friend but wept, begging Adonai to allow him to follow. But the heavens were silent. When he was once again aware of his surroundings, he discovered in the gray pre-dawn that a hollow-eyed Sheatiel had kept watch over him.

Her pain-stricken eyes seemed to read his soul as she reached to cup his cheek with her hand, “He was fortunate to have a friend like you. Kal is with Him now. His pain is over.”

Rapha nodded, unable to look away though his eyes felt gritty from his long vigil.

“The Holy One has spoken to my heart. He wants you to know it was not your fault. You are fulfilling your appointed role in this dark hour.”

The choking sob burst forth, a sudden rush that would not be denied, as Rapha felt the agony of recent days flood his being. Hardly realizing how he came to be in that position, Rapha found himself weeping on Sheatiel’s shoulder as Adonai’s presence flowed through her slight frame, filling his soul and overwhelming his exhausted body.

Her lips were at his ear and her hot tears mingled with his as Sheatiel whispered, “He is very pleased with you.”

Somehow, he felt enfolded in Adonai’s being as an unspeakable joy, a sensational overflow he had not thought to experience again until his sojourn on earth was over, wrapped him in quiet, contented, blinding perfection. Rapha was too overwhelmed to wonder why, all he could do was drink in Adonai’s breath as if he had been holding his own for a millennia.

The eternal moment stretched on as he felt every hurting nook of his existence flooded by the persistent, sweet, pervading holiness. Slowly, as if emerging from deep fathoms of liquid warmth, Rapha became aware that Sheatiel was slumped against him. A gentle snore told him she was fast asleep. Moving slowly so as not to wake her, Rapha inched Sheatiel onto his lap in order to carry her to where Eve was sleeping.

But when her head rolled against his chest and her small hand grasped a fold of his robe, Rapha stopped to enjoy the warm sense of companionship, the absence of alone-ness, that had become an accepted element of his circumstances. The feeling was so unexpected and sweet, he froze, gazing at Sheatiel’s velvety cheek and perfect, full lips, parted in the absolute peace of sleep only an innocent child enjoys.

Rapha felt a wave of rage as he considered Sheatiel at the hands of evil men who would abuse such beauty. He hugged her closer and ran his large hand through the shining hair, letting the rippling curls slide through his fingers. Again the blissful scent of Adonai was in the air. Again tears ran down his cheeks, this time for the horror and cruelty she had endured. How could Adonai know and not intervene?

Clearly the answer resounded in his heart, “I AM intervening now… through you.”

And he was there, looking through Sheatiel’s eyes, feeling every violation, the sting of every blow, the despair and shock searing his mind to numbness. In the midst of this torture, the image of the Holy One, holding Sheatiel close in the same way Rapha held her, stroking the hair from her bloodied and bruised face, whispering endearments and weeping as Sheatiel lay, shivering and naked but too frozen inside to cover her body, hating herself too much to care.

Then came peace; Adonai covering her with his mantle of love, and healing, salving every wound, inside and out.

In her sleep, Sheatiel whimpered and buried her face in Rapha’s chest. Reflexively, his arms tightened around her and he whispered the language of heaven, his voice and heart slowing until there, on the hard ground at the site of Kal’s cruel death, Rapha too slept, breathing in the essence of her grief and freedom.