Edge of Eternity by Randy Alcorn

Author:Randy Alcorn [Alcorn, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-55346-1
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

THE COLD FRIGHT of the young man’s death dispersed the crowd, who hauled Fistface away to tend his injuries. Though my left shoulder burned, I carried Quon’s body to the cool of the willows, where the women peeked out, stunned and weeping.

I laid Quon down, then backed away to the trunk of the largest willow, huddling against the darkness. I fingered Fistface’s knife, cleaned it in a patch of long grass, then slipped it under my belt.

Maybe I’ll give it back to him—between his ribs.

I must have sat a long time, all my jumbled thoughts threads in one vast fabric of pain. Malaiki finally convinced me to join them in the camp and let her tend my wounds.

Reluctantly I emerged, light assaulting my eyes. I sat against a large rock in silence, staring at a circular white cloud wrapped around a jagged peak to the west, a stocking cap on a cold bare head. The southern face was a weather-shattered cliff on which I watched dark shadows play. This was Mount Peirasmos—the closer we got to it, the more it obscured my view of Charis. The thick red clouds had blown south and never dropped their rain on us. I wished they had, so that I wouldn’t need to hide the wetness on my face.

“I don’t get it,” I said, as Malaiki wrapped a bandage around my bruised ribs. “Quon served the King. He was so young. And he was my friend. Why would the King let him die?”

“All men die,” Shad said. “Most live and die for nothing. Quon lived and died for something.”

I cringed and turned my back on him. “He suffered,” I spit out. “The rocks, they … I should have …” I clenched my fists.

Malaiki crushed some leaves in her hands and rubbed them against my lifeless left shoulder. I flinched but inhaled deeply the sweet yet pungent fragrance of the herbs. After putting water on the fire and mixing in leaves, she pressed a cool, wet rag against my forehead, then gave me a cup of senaba. When the leaves had boiled, she dipped a towel in the water and packed the hot towel on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, just thirty feet away, Victoria washed and prepared Quon’s body, and ten feet beyond her David dug a shallow grave, using a trifold shovel from his pack.

“The GuideBook promises suffering,” Shad said, apparently in response to my words several minutes earlier. “It also promises comfort and relief. But most of that comes in the next world. Here we are but aliens and strangers and pilgrims. We’re not citizens of this world.”

I could feel my flesh burning as he quoted from the GuideBook, “In the new world there will be no more crying or pain.”

“Quon was in pain,” I said. “And I’m in pain!”

“As am I—because we are not yet in the new world.” He shrugged, as if it were that simple.

“The King could have stopped Quon from suffering,” I said, “saved him from dying. Why didn’t he? Does

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