It was dark in the scrub tree grove that slowed Iamerge’s headlong plunge.  This, this of death is not for me.  I’ve died a dozen times and never felt the bite.

There was a breeze that ruffled the woody firs, Iamerge turned and looked.  The Wanderer, tumbling as it went, fled away like he had.  The darkness all around him felt oppressive despite the moon wind.  He stopped to look up at a sky full of stars.  Why should I flee what may never touch me?

In the night the chanting of the monks came to him out of darkness, “. . .God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure. My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day.  .  .”

Was this destruction and death the expression of an angry God?  And where?  Where, out in all that dark, is a god.  I see a little light, glittering points of beauty, but where is God?

” . . . He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment.  He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made.^”   Iamerge chuckled to himself.  He sat among the needles and litter.  I wonder if a pit might not be preferable to death, a safe place.  I should dig a hidee-hole. 

The chanting rose, recapturing Iamerge’s notice, “I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.”

Iamerge sat breathlessly.  The silence made him fidget and he would have rose and walked back to the fire if he’d been sure of the way. 

Then low and slow the monks began again, building quickly, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” Iamerge turned to the sound.  He could see nothing of the firelight.  He clambered to his feet, feeling as he began to walk to the sound.  “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. . .”

He shuffled forward, waving his hands before him in the blackness.  A root seemed to grab his foot and he pitched headlong into a low bushy tree.  He stumbled and tried to catch himself, but tangled in the branches he went down hard.  Iamerge struck his head and saw stars of a sort.  He rolled over, stunned, and saw above him the stars of the sky.

*  *  *

Conal lay in pain. His legs ached from well below where he knew they now ended, from phantom feet all the way into his belly.  He wept, but not for the pain, he wept for joy at the sound of the monks chanting their prayers to the LORD. 

He gazed at the beauty of the heavens through the blur of his tears.  The brothers began again, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  My lord too, now.  

“You have set your glory above the heavens.” Above even those stars? I wish I could sing like the brothers. “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”

I’m ready to die, I could go now and happily.  What use could I be, that the LORD wants me? ”When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” 

In the dimness of the firelight, Conal seemed to hear a still small voice, or he simply knew in his soul, “You will live and you will serve me well.  I have loved you, Conal, from everlasting.”

The brothers sang, “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:  all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.”

Then I will serve you all my days.  Conal’s spirit sang with his brothers, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

*  *  *

Iamerge’s mind whirled in chaos and fear, It was stupid to run out into the night.  What was I thinking?  Weren’t their corpses he’d seen, men who had fallen to those beasts?  Why did he fear to see that man die with him sitting helpless beside?  What was so hard about that?

Iamerge looked up and saw a shadow blocking the stars.  He cringed, fearing the beast-men.  The Stranger only, He thought, around its rim was the dim light of the three stars of Tir na Nua, but the Stranger kept most of that light sending only a little back out to be seen.

Iamerge got to his feet with care now.  His senses were alive.  Realistically, it was unlikely that those things would return.  Then too, he was not far from the men.  Conal’s death had un-nerved him and then stumbling in the dark had brought panic.  He was fine and would be fine. Soon enough he would see his way clear. 

Iamerge felt something on his forehead, he made to brush it away and his fingers came away wet.  He was bleeding.  “There now, I’ll not escape this foolishness without embarrassment,”  He said in the night.

In the dimness he felt something at his feet.  He reached down and his probing fingers found a long branch, like a staff.  He grasped it and used it to return to standing.  Iamerge’s head ached abominably, but the rough wood in his hands was a comfort.  He felt less vulnerable.  Now nothing left but to find my way back.  then I’ll add myself to the wounded souls around the fire, he thought.

Again he heard the monks chanting, “I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.”  It was a matter of minutes fumbling in the dark and he saw the glow of the fire before him and the blue light of Spark lightening the horizon,

“I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. . .” the brothers sang as Bright, the blue star, rose.

Smoke sat and thought about what he would do with this new life.  He wanted to at least say goodbye to Gospels before he left and perhaps he could impose for another night, with directions and a nights sleep.  Another sigh escaped, he did not relish sleeping again on a stone bench, but at least it would keep the dew off of him.

So engrossed was he with his plans that he didn’t hear the end of the monks chanting nor did he notice as Gospels approached. 

“I’m sorry my friend, I abandoned you.”

Smoke must have jumped, Gospels approached more slowly not wanting to cause alarm. ”No no, as soon as I heard the Psalms I knew what had happened.  Before the Golden One set I saw the town.

“At least now I can offer you a bit more hospitality,” said Gospels. 

“Will we share a stone bench or will I have one all to myself?” quipped Smoke.

Gospels laughed, “No, I shall have my old stone bench and you will have a bed, the best we have, though that isn’t saying much.  There is a guest house.  Hospitality is important to this order.  Though there is no evening meal for the brothers, you and I are being offered a repast, you as our guest and I get to share it for company and on account of my fast.”

“Thank you Gospels, I accept.  Will there be bird egg and moss gruel? I have to confess a growing fondness for it.”

“Perhaps if you must, that can be arranged tomorrow.  Tonight I think we will dine on more common fare.  I hope you will like it.”

“Common to you or to me, Gospels?”

“Come and see.  I don’t think you saw our hospitality at its best on the Skellig.  The larder was a bit bare.  All we had was not very much I’ll grant you.” Gospels turned and walked down toward the buildings. “I’ll show you the guest house.  I think there may be water for washing along with the dinner.”

Smoke followed, “I’m sorry I teased Gospels, I’m pleased to be free of that isle.  I pity those poor monks who took our place.”

“Just ahead here. See? There is light from the doorway.”

White Hands was a very thin man, he looked the sort that would be nervous in Smoke’s experience, but this man didn’t seem to be.  His eyes were serious, but he did not look embittered or even impoverished by his condition.  Smoke tore his eyes away from White Hand’s gaze and focused his attention on the meager meal.  “What do you mean?” Smoke ventured.

“Well, I confess, I was a bit discouraged.  I was unsure of what the Lord had intended by stranding me here.  Now I wonder, after a string of somewhat improbable failures to leave, if the reason I am here is you.”

There was little enough of the dried fish and greens but hunger made it delicious, “Good fortune for me.” he said around a mouthful.

“Most uncommon luck.  More likely God’s providence.”

Smoke didn’t know what to make of the suggestion and the personal implications.  He decided to take the focus off of himself, “Tell me, this Lord, this God of whom you speak.  I have some knowledge of religion.  I have lived among the Mohammedans and too I learned to read the Hebrew scripture.  Is it one of these that you invoke?”

“Are you Jewish?”

“No.  Or rather I do not believe so.  I never knew my parents.” Smoke brushed aside the question about his person.  “I just noticed that the prayers you chant, the songs, they seem to me to be much like the Psalms of the Hebrew king David, but you sing them in the language of the traders, the navigators.”

“Umircen.  I am of that folk, originally.  But now I serve the Lord God of Israel.  Some call him Jehovah, though it is thought by scholars that His name is in truth Yahweh.  I understand that the Hebrews do not say it lest they take that holy name in vain.”

“So you are of a sect of Judaism?”

“Devoted to the true King of Israel, the Christ, so we call ourselves Christian.  But the sect, as you say, the brotherhood, is the Community of the Word.  Jesus Christ is named also the Word, and the Light of the World, and many other names.  Allah, though, is not among them.”

“Among the Mohammedans there is a Jesus who is honored as a prophet, I have not heard of him from the Jews. . .”

“He is prophet, priest, and He is King, not just of the Jews, but of this world and all others.”

“Hmmm, King of all.  If you say, though it would seem that he does not pay his servants that well.”

White Hands laughed.  Smoke was shocked by the reaction.  The laughter was sincere as was the smile that White Hands shared with him.  In truth, he had only meant to sting the fellow a little and break him out of his religious lecture, but the good will flowing from this fellow was at odds with what he had experienced from Muhammadan Imams and Jewish Rabbis alike.  “I should ask Him about that.  The Word says that He sends rain on the just and the unjust.  Perhaps I could do with less of that one and more of another.”  White Hands laughed at his own joke. “Do you read Umircen, the trader’s tongue, young man?”

“I do a little,” Smoke answered.

“Then perhaps I do have wealth to share, though not much food.”

“or wine. . .”

“In truth no, none at all for either of us, but we do have water.”

                                          *     *     *

Smoke struggled against the weight upon him as he had the weight of the heavy sea.  But this was not the sea, it held him against hard rock unlike the wash of the sea that he had been unable to press against, then too, he was warm.  He ached all over from the beating against the rocks, but even pain meant nothing now that he was warm.  No need to fight, Smoke slept.

Where?  That question came to him from his fevered dreams or memories.  He had been thrown against the rocks enough times for him to have given up on land as salvation and come to terms with his death.  That he remembered.

He  had a vague memory of a calling for salvation from God, but that didn’t fit with his remembered resignation.  He remembered white hands, no, before that he remembered calling on God and then being hauled from the sea by one foot.  He remembered seeing the angry sea above him, falling toward him, but that was his perspective.  Then he was lifted by the sea. . .   

. . . and then white hands.

There was no light where he lay.  His bed was hard.  His battered body ached beneath some covering, heavy, warm.  There was music, or at least a voice in the dark that chanted words he could not quite catch.  Here and there in the chant, words came clear on the wind, praises to God, thanksgivings, strange as the sea falling from the sky, he thought, he was hearing the Psalms of the Hebrews in the trader’s tongue.

The cadence changed, the words became indestinguishable to Smoke in the night with wind and the distant roar of the sea and then only that.  Whorls and patterning burst on his retina, but there was nothing real to see in the night, nothing but the night to hear.

Then, as suddenly as silence, there was a presence.  Smoke heard a whisper of feet on stone, a sigh.  “Hello?” His voice sounded like the croak of a scavenger bird, meaningless except that he knew what he had meant to say.

“Oh, you are awake.”  There was shuffling, a trickling of water, and he could feel the radiant warmth of the figure near him.  ”You must be parched.”

“Yes. . .” he attempted an answer, but it was just crow talk again.

He felt fingers lightly brush his face, a thin arm lifted his head, and then cool sweet water filled his mouth and he swallowed.  A few more sips and he was laid back. 

The warmth moved away and he waited for more conversation that never came.  “How odd,” he thought or said but weariness carried him back to slumber.