Chapter Six

Solomon and Moses

Humans are closest to the Creator but inclined toward destruction

Elisium

The Fifth Loop, Year 491, 1st January (5L/491/1/1)

"I'm Moses, not Solomon," Moses said through clenched teeth.

What's this Solomon, Solomon? First Joseph and now this man.

I'm tired of hearing this word.

Yeah, the Crossing sometimes makes people go nuts. You're surrounded by crazy people.

"Hello, I am George," The leader of the group said extending his hand towards Moses. "Welcome to Elisium. Your captors had certainly planned to send you directly to heaven, but quite miraculously you survived the journey."

Moses rolled his eyes. "But I'm still as confused as before."

"Son, you will have all the time in two worlds to get your answers, but right now we need to get moving. We don't want any of those looters to return and throw you all back into the river."

George looked at his men. "Brothers, each one of you will carry a person on his horse. We should reach the Refuge before sunrise. Son, you come with me."

Going with strangers. Is it a good idea?

They look friendly and what other options do I have in this hostile world?

What if they kill you? Or torture you? Haven't you heard stories about the man-eating savages of Tenebra?

Those stories are fiction, poorly written by some horrible author. I would rather take my chances with them than become a feast for the beasts.

All the other survivors were on horseback by the time Moses had finished arguing with his echo. Just before dawn, they entered a beautiful valley surrounded by rugged mountains. A large lake adorned the center of this valley with thousands of shanties built around it in a disorganized manner.

Their caravan stopped in front of a dingy building. "Friends, I thought I must first bring you all to this place. There is a chance that here you might find someone you know," Geroge announced to the survivors.

Some old men were seated around a dining table inside the hall. Joseph went near a person, with freckled skin, greying hair, and wearing a worn-out suit accompanied by an ancient-looking hat. Joseph had last seen this man four decades ago when he was just three years old, but his photo wearing this same suit and hat was framed in his house. "Father," Joseph said in a quivering voice.

The old man looked at Joseph from top to bottom. "Joseph!!" He cried and embraced his son in a tight hug. "Well, I had lost all hopes of seeing you. I thought you might be amongst those consumed by the Drowning in the last few decades."

"Yet he never gives up wearing this suit at every Crossing," George added with a smile.

"Father, how did you recognize me?" Joseph asked Jacob. "I was a toddler when you were banished."

"Yes, but you have turned out to be a copy of me in my younger days. And dumb-head you are my only son, who else is going to call me Father?"

George's eyes were moist seeing this father-son reunion. "Your father's Banishment was the last instance in which Aden's soldiers did pull the prisoners out of the river."

"What did they do after saving them?" Moses asked.

Jacob answered his query. "Well, they took us deep into the jungles and set us loose to die in the wilderness. No one had ever made out of that forest alive until these lovely Elisians started rescuing the prisoners and bringing them here."

"We realized that all the Banished are like us, innocents oppressed by the tyrants. Besides that, bringing these people here had many benefits." George's cheeks turned pink when he said that.

Why is he blushing?

Yes, what's wrong with him? Overall he looks like a reasonable man.

All people in Tenebra are psychotic killers. Don't get fooled by their sugar-coated niceties.

God! You shouldn't have read all those gruesome comics about Tenebra.

Jacob chuckled. "Don't look at him like that. Well, he fell in love with my cousin Cynthia, the first woman ever to be banished. Cynthia made pulp of a few soldiers who had come to abduct her brother so the regime decided to banish her instead. George loves rebellious people and this was a match made in heaven."

"Not rebellious, rather free-spirited," George corrected his friend.

"It's the same. Anyways, they are the first, and so far the only, cross-world couple."

George audibly cleared his throat. "My friend, I was not talking about that benefit. Some of these survivors like Jacob and Nathan have been a great help. But it seems that the end of this Loop is getting on the nerves of these despots. Drowning innocent people?? They are desperate to avoid the next Transition."

"What's a Transition?" Moses asked, inadvertently touching the amulet under his shirt. Jacob gave him a long stare before explaining the Theory of Transition to him in detail where he, quite unnecessarily, mentioned the amulet a couple of times.

"But what's an amulet gonna do in this whole saga?" Moses asked the question Jacob wanted him to ask.

While in Aden, Jacob had worked in the Royal Archives and had studied in detail about the legends and myths of Transtion. "Well, as per the legends, this Amulet of Transition provides the Transitioner with supreme abilities but only a direct descendant of Adam the First—the great king who forged that amulet—can unleash its powers."

Joseph gasped. "We Solomons are the direct descendants of Adam, right? I never knew our family had such a great history."

"Yes, and that is also the reason why they are hunting down every one of us."

"There are hundreds of descendants of Solomon. So how'd you identify your so-called transitioner?" Moses asked fidgeting with the collar of his shirt

"It's not that difficult," Jacob replied, with his eyes fixed on Moses, reading his every expression. "All the Transitioners are born on the first Day of Darkness, exactly three decades before the turn of the Loop."

"My daughter Jennifer was born on that exact date," George said with a gleam in his eyes. "The first of January year four hundred and seventy-one."

"Yes, I know," Jacob said through pursed lips. He never liked it when someone interrupted his flow. "I was there at her twentieth birthday party yesterday. By the way, I have never eaten such a delicious cake in my forty years in Elisium."

"Cynthia baked the cake, some secret Solomon recipe she says," George said with a hint of pride in his voice. It was quite clear, he was head over heels in love with his wife. "Jacob, Jennifer is also a descendant of Solomon, from her mother's side of course, could she be the one?"

Jacob shook his head. "No, because there have been no female Transitioners, and all these Transitioners were born in the other world. They leaped on the day they became adults to kickstart the chain of events for the Transition. If these legends are true, the next Transitioner should now be the age of this young man," Jacob said pointing towards Moses.

Everyone in the room stared at Moses. Moses didn't know what to say. He just kept snapping his fingers.

"Son, will you stop doing that?" George said rubbing his forehead. "My daughter does that as well and I feel like someone is hammering my brain."

Jacob turned to his son who was munching on some peanuts from a bowl. "Well Joseph, tell me how did you escape the Drowning? Surviving that death trap is a miracle in itself."

Joseph cast an apologetic glance towards Moses and told everyone about what he saw during the Drowning. First the jets of fire from the amulet and then Moses kicking the gate down. Now all eyes in the room were focused on Moses who stood there like a deer caught in headlights.

"Let me show you something," George said, holding Moses's hand and leading him toward a small room adjoining the dining hall. "Do you know why I called you Solomon? My most famous ancestor Geoffrey was a skilled painter besides being the Commander of the Elisian army."

"Well, so commanding an army is in your genes," Jacob commented.

"Yes, I think so. Moses, hear this out. Almost five hundred years ago, King Isaac asked Geoffrey to make a portrait of Solomon, a gift for the prince on his twentieth birthday. But Isaac got murdered, Solomon mysteriously disappeared and the portrait just passed down the generations in our family."

George opened the gate of his office and pointed to the wall behind his working desk. "Now see this for yourself."

A life-size portrait hung on the wall. Moses's mouth fell open as he looked at himself dressed in lavish royal robes. The painting was a masterclass and it captured every little detail.

Broad shoulders, muscular build, firm jaw, green eyes, and a handsome face. Damn, just like you he even has a mole on his left chin.

This person doesn't look like me, he is me. Exactly the same. Inch by inch and hair by hair.

He may have your face but you don't have his grace. He's total royalty, from top to bottom. You're just a cheap copy.

Shut up and let me think.

Moses's head started to spin. He held onto a table for support. "I'm no Solomon. I wasn't even able to save myself from getting banished and you expect me to do what Solomon did?"

"Well, that amulet in your neck will give you the power to do that."

Moses removed the amulet and put it down on a table. "Take this and do whatever you want with it. I don't want any of this. I just want to return to my world, my home, see my mother."

Jacob put a hand around Moses's shoulder. "All of us want the same. To regain our lost paradise but some looters are blocking our way."

An eerie silence hung in the room. Jacob and George had waited for this moment for their entire lives, whereas Moses didn't know whether this was a path chosen by destiny or a trap laid by fate.

Moses walked to the small window in the office to breathe some fresh air. This building, built on a slope, gave a good view of the shambolic mess called the Refuge. "George, you kept saying throughout the journey that Aden and Elisium are identical, but your world's nothing like mine. This very place, The Refuge, there's no such messy shambolic town in Aden. Honestly, this settlement's the ultimate opposite of Aurae."

George sighed and spoke after a long pause. "Son, there is no Refuge in Aden because there are no refugees. This place is the last sanctuary for the people who have been driven away from their homes. Nature can create identical twins but it cannot stop one sister from slashing or stabbing the other."

"So The Refuge is not nature's plan, rather a scar?"

"Yes. A painful scar on humanity's face. Nature planned to let the two worlds develop alternately, one by one, Loop after Loop, but humans, as always messed up its design. Now due to Aden's atrocities, this world isn't stagnant but stable, as it was supposed to be, rather it is deteriorating at a very fast pace."

These guys think you are a kid.

And why do you think so?

They've told you all the bedtime stories they tell their grandkids. I'm surprised you've not fallen asleep

"Oh Wow!" Moses smirked. "You mean humans have messed up the grand scheme of things, overwritten God's plan?"

George gave a wry smile. "Son, humans are the closest to the Creator but inclined towards destruction, so never underestimate their capacity to self-destruct. Aden's ruthless exploitation has turned this natural Dance of Two Sisters into a swordfight—where Aden is using guns. This can't go on forever, there will be a backlash."

Jacob came close to the window and gestured to the houses outside it. "You know, here not just the houses are worn down, people's self-esteem and any hope of a respectable life are in tatters as well. You know how it feels when your kids cry out of hunger and you can't feed them, day after day?"

"Son, maybe Elisium was supposed to remain under shadows, but these gluttonous demons have pushed it into misery and gloom," George said through a clenched jaw. "And now they want to stop these cycles of Transition, once and for all."

"But why are they against this Transition?" Moses asked, snapping his fingers again in quick bursts.

I thought your back was paining after a night-long old-fashioned horse ride.

It is paining, badly.

Then why are you asking these stupid questions rather than asking where is your room?

"How things stand right now, only some catastrophic events can tilt the balance of power between the two worlds and the looters can't afford that," George answered Moses's latest query. "They want to keep Aden on top and drain all the hope and happiness out of Elisium to truly turn it into Tenebra, the dark world."

Jacob looked into Moses's eyes as if he was searching for something. "Well, Aden's regime wants to push Elisium into the shadows for eternity so that they can rule both worlds forever. There is no chance of a gradual Transition now, it's time for a loud bang. You have to do what our forebearer Solomon did a Loop ago in this world. The legendary powers of the Transitioner at the turn of the Loop are Elisium's only hope."

George dropped to his knees in front of Moses. "I know the odds are heavily against you, but you have prayers of millions of oppressed men women, and children with you. You will surely succeed because success is the only path when failure is no longer an option."

George brought Moses out of the office into the dining hall. He held Moses's right hand and raised it towards the sky. "Let us hail Moses, Moses the Savior."

Everyone in the room dropped to their knees and chanted in a single voice. "Moses the Savior."

Moses was crowned the Savior inside a small room.And with this coronation, the burden of saving two worlds fell on hisshoulders.