The Fifth Mountain Part 18

Elijah decided not to insist; the boy had already experienced great difficulties and much fear in his short life. He did as he was asked; they came out from the fog and could once again discern the valley below.

"Someday, look in Akbar's library for what I wrote for you. It's called The Manual of the Warrior of Light."

"Am I a warrior of light?" replied the boy.

"Do you know what my name is?" asked Elijah.

"Liberation."

"Sit here beside me," said Elijah, pointing to a rock. "I cannot forget my name. I must continue with my task, even if at this moment all I desire is to be at your side. That was why Akbar was rebuilt, to teach us that it is necessary to go onward, however difficult it may appear."

"You're going away."

"How do you know?" he asked, surprised.

"I wrote it on a tablet, last night. Something told me; it may have been my mother, or an angel. But I already felt it in my heart."

Elijah caressed the boy's head.

"You have learned to read G.o.d's will," he said contentedly. "So there's nothing that I need to explain to you."

"What I read was the sadness in your eyes. It wasn't difficult. Other friends of mine noticed it too."

"This sadness you read in my eyes is part of my story. Only a small part that will last but a few days. Tomorrow, when I depart for Jerusalem, it will not have the strength it had before, and little by little it will disappear. Sadness does not last forever when we walk in the direction of that which we always desired."

"Is it always necessary to leave?"

"It's always necessary to know when a stage of one's life has ended. If you stubbornly cling to it after the need has pa.s.sed, you lose the joy and meaning of the rest. And you risk being shaken to your senses by G.o.d."

"The Lord is stern."

"Only with those He has chosen."

ELIJAH LOOKED AT AKBAR below. Yes, G.o.d sometimes could be very stern, but never beyond a person's capacity: the boy was unaware that they were sitting where Elijah had received an angel of the Lord and learned how to bring him back from the dead.

"Are you going to miss me?" Elijah asked.

"You told me that sadness disappears if we press ahead. There's still much to do to leave Akbar as beautiful as my mother deserves. She walks in its streets."

"Come back to this place when you have need of me. And look toward Jerusalem: I shall be there, seeking to give meaning to my name, Liberation. Our hearts are linked forever."

"Was that why you brought me to the top of the Fifth Mountain? So I could see Israel?"

"So you could see the valley, the city, the other mountains, the rocks and clouds. The Lord often has his prophets climb mountains to converse with Him. I always wondered why He did that, and now I know the answer: when we are on high, we can see everything else as small.

"Our glory and our sadness lose their importance. Whatever we conquered or lost remains there below. From the heights of the mountain, you see how large the world is, and how wide its horizons."

The boy looked about him. From the top of the Fifth Mountain, he could smell the sea that bathed the beaches of Tyre. And he could hear the desert wind that blew from Egypt.

"Someday I'll govern Akbar," he told Elijah. "I know what's big. But I also know every corner of the city. I know what needs to be changed.""Then change it. Don't let things remain idle."

"Couldn't G.o.d have chosen a better way of showing us all this? There was a time when I thought He was evil."

Elijah said nothing. He recalled a conversation, many years before, with a Levite prophet while the two awaited death at the hands of Jezebel's soldiers.

"Can G.o.d be evil?" the boy insisted.

"G.o.d is all-powerful," answered Elijah. "He can do anything, and nothing is forbidden to Him, for if it were, there would exist someone more powerful than He, to prevent His doing certain things. In that case, I should prefer to wors.h.i.+p and revere that more powerful someone."

He paused for several instants to allow the boy to fathom the meaning of his words. Then he continued.

"Still, because of His infinite power, He chose to do only Good. If we reach the end of our story, we shall see that often Good is disguised as Evil, but it goes on being the Good, and is part of the plan that He created for humanity."

He took the boy by the hand, and together they descended the mountain in silence.

THAT NIGHT, the boy went to sleep in his arms. As soon as day began to break, Elijah carefully removed him from his bosom so he would not awaken him.

He quickly donned the only garment he possessed and departed. On the road, he picked up a piece of wood from the ground and used it as a staff. He planned never to be without it: it was the remembrance of his struggle with G.o.d, of the destruction and rebuilding of Akbar.

Without looking back, he continued toward Israel.

FIVE YEARS LATER, a.s.sYRIA AGAIN INVADED THE COUNTRY, this time with a more professional army and more competent generals. All Phoenicia fell under the domination of the foreign conqueror except Tyre and Zarephath, which its inhabitants called Akbar.

The boy became a man, governed the city, and was judged a sage by his contemporaries. He died in the fullness of his years, surrounded by loved ones and saying always that "it was necessary to keep the city beautiful and strong, for his mother still strolled its streets." Because of their joint system of defense, Tyre and Zarephath were not occupied by the a.s.syrian king Sennacherib until 701 B.C., almost 160 years after the events related in this book.

From that time on, Phoenician cities never recovered their importance and began to suffer a series of invas...o...b.. the Neo-Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Seleucids, and, finally, by Rome. Even so, they continue to exist in our own time because, according to ancient tradition, the Lord never selected at random the places He wished to see inhabited. Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos are still part of Lebanon, which even today remains a battlefield.

ELIJAH RETURNED TO ISRAEL AND CALLED THE PROPHETS together at Mount Carmel. There he asked them to divide into two groups: those who wors.h.i.+ped Baal, and those who believed in the Lord. Following the angel's instructions, he offered a bullock to the first group and asked them to call out to the heavens for their G.o.ds to receive it. The Bible says: "And it came to pa.s.s at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a G.o.d; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

"And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.

"And there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded."

Then Elijah took his animal and offered it, following the angel's instructions. At that moment the fire of heaven descended and "consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones." Minutes later, a heavy rain fell, ending four years of drought.

From that moment, civil war broke out. Elijah ordered the execution of the prophets who had betrayed the Lord, and Jezebel sought him everywhere, to kill him. He fled, however, to the eastern part of the Fifth Mountain, which faced Israel.

The Syrians invaded the country and killed King Ahab, husband of the princess of Tyre, with an accidentally shot arrow that entered an opening in his armor. Jezebel took refuge in her palace and, following several popular revolts and the rise and fall of various governments, was captured. She preferred leaping from a window to giving herself up to the men sent to arrest her.

Elijah remained on the mountain until the end of his days. The Bible says that one afternoon, when he was conversing with Elisha, the prophet he had named as his successor, "there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

Almost eight hundred years later, Jesus bade Peter, James, and John to climb a mountain. The Gospel according to Matthew relates that Jesus "was transfigured before them; and his face did s.h.i.+ne as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him."

Jesus asks the apostles not to speak of this vision until the Son of Man be risen from the dead, but they reply that this will happen only when Elijah returns.

Matthew 17:1013 tells the rest of the story: Zd his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?

"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.

"Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist."

MARIA CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN, PRAY FOR US WHO call on Thee.

Amen.

About the Translator

CLIFFORD E. LANDERS is professor of political science at Jersey City State College and a premier translator of Latin American fiction. He has translated into English many of Brazil's top writers, including Jorge Amado, Rubem Fonseca, and Chico Buarque. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PAULO COELHO is an international bestselling author whose booksThe Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, The Valkyries, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, and The Fifth Mountainhave sold more than 25 million copies in 117 countries and have been translated into 43 languages. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

ALSO BY PAULO COELHO

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The Pilgrimage

The Valkyries

By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept