The Deliverer (4 page)
“Leave him alone.” He turned to me as if daring me to say the wrong word. “You did say Pharaoh’s daughter has him; you did get that part right?”
I nodded.
“Then he’ll grow up in Pharaoh’s court. They won’t keep the nursemaid for very long. After that, they’ll be careful not to let him associate with the Hebrews. They won’t tell him who he is, of course. He will be raised as an Egyptian with all the wealth and religion of Egypt.” Then Satan started chuckling. (Hard to imagine that, isn’t it?)
“The Egyptians will do our work for us. Whatever or whoever he is now won’t matter; the environment of Egypt will change him. I’m not convinced he’s who you think he is, but we take no chances.” He glared right at me again. “After all, why would God save him from death only to send him into Pharaoh’s court to be raised among the people who are in our camp? It’s not like God to make a mistake like that. You’re probably wrong about who he is.”
I knew I wasn’t wrong, but I also knew enough not to challenge Satan’s flawed reasoning.
“Nevertheless,” Satan whirled back to Bezel. “Watch him, but don’t touch him. In fact, make sure he gets every indulgence in Egypt. See to it the girl spoils him. Baby him, pamper him, overprotect—keep him away from the influence of men. Make sure he’s a mama’s boy. If he
is
the deliverer, we can circumvent his destiny. When God calls him, he won’t go. He won’t leave the posh comforts of Egypt. Don’t let him make any friends among the Hebrews. Visit Pharaoh’s daughter in her dreams. Tell her if she lets the boy spend any time with them, the Hebrews will try to steal him away from her. Plant fear and distrust in her mind.
“And you.” Satan turned back to me. “Get back out there on guard duty. If he makes any moves toward God, let me know instantly.”
I went back to my perch and began my watch. Mostly I watched nothing happen for what seemed like forever. I stood guard for years, and after a while, it seemed as if Satan might have been right. Moses grew up as a brother to Ramses, Pharaoh’s true son. And … oh my … yes, those boys were spoiled rotten. God never intervened as far as I could tell, and Moses never indicated any particular affinity for the Hebrews. Maybe I’d been wrong about him after all; still, I couldn’t forget what I’d seen in that baby’s eyes.
Then one day, something quite unexpected happened. Moses was walking along the edge of the mud pits where the Hebrews were making bricks for the new pyramid. Nearby an Egyptian soldier began savagely beating one of the Hebrew slaves for no good reason I could see. Nothing new in that; it happened all the time. But all at once, Moses was in the fight.
He caught the soldier completely off guard and killed him. Looking around to see if anyone had seen what happened (no one had except me, of course), he dragged the soldier’s body behind the pits and buried it in the sand. When I say that no one saw, I mean no one of any importance. None of the Egyptians were around to see it, but wouldn’t you know, the Hebrews who were working in that same pit saw the whole thing. But so what? They weren’t going to tattle to anyone about a dead Egyptian; one less for them to worry about. For whatever reason Moses had done what he did, he appeared to be home free. And that is exactly what I reported to Satan.
“He knows,” Satan murmured as he paced restlessly in front of his throne.
“Knows what, sir?”
“Moses knows who he is.”
He seemed quite certain, which was always the case with him, so I should’ve known to say nothing and nod in agreement whether or not I thought he might be right. But I didn’t.
“Oh, I don’t think so, sir,” I quipped, forgetting for a moment that no one quipped a contradiction Satan’s way. I tried to explain what I meant.
“He can’t know, sir. He’s had no contact with the Hebrews. No close encounters of any kind—nada, zilch. Further, God hasn’t yet made a move toward him. I wouldn’t have missed something like that. Maybe Moses didn’t like the attitude of that particular soldier. Who knows what may have motivated him to kill the Egyptian? Whatever it was, I’m quite sure it could have had nothing to do with any empathy toward the slaves.”
Satan ignored my explanation. “Did anyone see him do it?”
“No one who counts. Some of the slaves saw it happen, but they’re not going to tell anyone, and even if they did, who would believe them? And if someone did believe them, who would care?”
It was as if I hadn’t said a thing. Satan turned from me and summoned Bezel, who was hovering outside the den listening to every word. He took Bezel by the arm and instructed him as they walked toward the door.
“Go out there and watch Moses. When he goes near the pits again, stir the Hebrews up. Cause a disturbance and see what he does.”
Bezel followed me back to my perch and crowded in beside me. Together we watched the pits for several days without leaving. I tried to make small talk, but he wasn’t much of a conversation-alist. He seemed content to simply sit there and stare at the slaves. He was much bigger than me, and when he stretched his wings out, he knocked me right off the end. Where did he think I was supposed to sit? I was already bunched up in a knot because of his size. He never once apologized. I hoped something would happen so Bezel would go home. Finally it did.
Moses was once again walking along the rim of the pits. Bezel jumped off the perch and took off for the earth so suddenly that it flipped me right off, like what happens when a child jumps off the low end of a seesaw while someone else is on the high end. I straightened myself out and watched him hover over two of the slaves in the pit. I couldn’t hear what he said, but suddenly, there they were slugging each other. Moses ran down to the edge and separated them and asked them why they were fighting. One of them began berating Moses.
“Who made you our judge when you’re nothing but a murderer?”
Moses turned pale. He looked around to see if anyone had heard, and someone had. One of the Egyptian guards heard every word. At first, the guard did nothing, but then I saw Bezel whispering in his ear.
“Report it to Pharaoh; there’s a reward in it for you.”
The guard took off for the palace, and I followed right behind him, but Bezel got there first and seated himself on the cushion right next to Pharaoh’s throne.
Pharaoh listened to the guard’s report with one ear and listened to Bezel interpret it with his other ear. A fight among slaves would have been a nonevent if it hadn’t been for Bezel. He told Pharaoh how Moses had found out about his heritage and was trying to start a rebellion among the slaves.
“Not only that, but look how ungrateful he is for all you’ve done for him, treating him like your own son.”
Pharaoh was immediately offended. Offense works every time.
“Seize him,” Pharaoh ordered. The palace guards took off after Moses. Bezel followed the guards, and I followed Bezel. They quickened their pace when they spotted Moses not far from the city gate. While they were still at a distance, a strange wind coming from nowhere and going nowhere begin to swirl around Moses’s head.
This was trouble. I hadn’t seen Him for hundreds of years, but I recognized the whirling wind that was a dead giveaway when Ruah Ha Kadosh arrived on the scene. Bad, very bad for any demon when He showed up. Seeing no convenient place to hide, I remained completely still, hoping Ruah Ha Kadosh would focus on Bezel and not notice me. His voice was unmistakable to anyone who had ever encountered Him, which Moses had not. Moses had no idea the third person of the Trinity was speaking into his mind. When he heard the words, “Flee to the desert,” he was off like a flash, not giving a second thought as to who had spoken to him. He ran so fast I was sure one of the guardian angels of the earth must have been zipping him along, but I quickly realized how unnecessary such a thing would have been. Ruah Ha Kadosh had breathed on him; Moses could have outrun a team of horses on that one breath. Immediately, I flew back to Satan’s den to tell him what had happened and how Moses was on the run.
I was fast but not fast enough to beat Bezel back to the lair. He sat near Satan, gloating and taking credit for running Moses out of town.
“Whether or not he was the deliverer,” Bezel bragged, “he will be nothing but a bad memory in a few days.”
Satan chortled, and much as I hated to agree with Bezel about anything, it looked like he was right. Moses would die in the desert, no doubt about it. The wasteland was ruthless and Moses had grown up a city boy. Out there alone with no servants to take care of him, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the desert.
Even if he were able to find someone in the wilderness who might take him in, all desert people worshiped one of Satan’s demon gods. They wouldn’t let Moses hang around their camp unless he joined in with their worship. They’d be too afraid he’d offend one of their easily angered deities. To survive, he would have to go along to get along, if you know what I mean. Once he joined in exaltation of one of Satan’s surrogates, he would have done the one thing from whence there were no do-overs with God: worship of a false deity … or real demon, same thing. Moses was toast. We didn’t think about him again for forty years.
O
NE DAY,
who knows why, Satan began to fidget. He jumped at the slightest noise and then glared at anyone he thought might have noticed. He paced back and forth near the rim of the second heaven, stopped at the edge, leaned over, sniffed the air, and paced again. We didn’t know
who
he was, but he was definitely not himself, which was an improvement since himself was pretty hard to take most of the time. While the other demons pretended not to be watching Satan fidget, I used the distraction to slip away by myself to my perch.
I’d been there only a moment when I felt the air temperature change. Satan came and sat down on the other end of my perch. I tried not to hyperventilate. He’d never done such a thing before, and it made me so nervous I wasn’t sure I could breathe at all.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked noticing my heaving wings.
“Nothing, sir. I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”
“I sit wherever I want.”
“Of course, to be sure.” I tried to breathe normally.
He sat there for quite a while not saying anything, just staring at the earth, particularly the Hebrew slaves. I wondered if I should say something to try to sound empathetic, although I wasn’t and didn’t feel anything except stress. What does one say to an out-of-sorts ruler of iniquity? I tried out several salutations in my head.
“How is it going, sir? Can I get you anything? Can I fetch you a slave for dinner?”
No, that wasn’t right. I tried again.
“Oh, it’s you, sir. I was just sitting here, holding my post and admiring the way you’ve messed up the earth again.”
Maybe not.
Before I could think of anything safe and clever to say, he spoke to me. Well, not
to
me exactly. It was more like
at
me, if you can picture it. He never turned his eyes toward me, just kept staring at the earth, but there was no doubt as to whether or not he was talking to me; he was. If for no other reason, it was because I was the only one there. When he spoke, I knew to listen and obey immediately, whatever he said.
“Find him.”
“Right away, sir.”
I was so anxious to get away from him that I jumped up, stretched my wings, and flapped off toward the earth as if I understood my assignment perfectly, when in fact, I did not. Not only did I not understand it, but also I didn’t know what it was. I looked back to see if Satan was still sitting on my perch. Yep, still there. I thought about turning back to get a few more details on my mission but then changed my mind.
Best not to look tentative. I’m sure I can figure this out. I wonder who I should be looking for?
In my zeal to get away, I hadn’t asked enough questions. I’d foolishly taken off unsure of where I was going or whom I was supposed to find. Now, it may seem obvious to you, a reader with the benefit of history, what “find him” meant, but try to remember that at the time, I lived under the rule and whim of a crazy person where nothing could be assumed. Besides all that, no one had said the name “Moses” in forty years. Truth be told, I’d all but forgotten about him.
I guessed I was to go to the earth because I couldn’t recall he’d ever sent me anywhere else. I flew in that direction, but when it came time to veer right, I got worried I might be wrong.
Maybe whoever he wants me to find isn’t even on the earth. What if he meant for me to find another demon who was somewhere else in the second heaven? I could end up looking silly.
No way around it; I had to go back for clarification.
I was halfway back to ask Satan exactly who it was he wanted me to find, but I changed my mind in mid flap. I knew he wouldn’t be civil about it. More than likely he would get mad and tell me to figure it out. So I banked left and resumed my original flight plan.
But since I don’t know who I’m looking for, how will I know if I find him? What did Satan tell me to do with him if I do find whoever it is?
I convinced myself I really
had
to go back and get better instructions, so I made a U-turn and headed toward my perch where Satan waited.
When I saw his face, I changed my mind again.
No, better not. He’s in no mood for questions.
I made another wide turn, realizing I had now flown in a complete circle. A crowd of demons had gathered near Satan and were making bets as to which way I would go next. Of course, that made me all the more nervous, so I just kept flying in a circle, trying to decide what to do.
Eventually, Satan ceased to be entertained by my predicament and dispatched one of the other demons who caught me by the tail as I flew past and then dragged me back to His Awfulness. The next thing I knew, it was Satan who was holding me by the tail, seething into my upside down face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know who I was to find,” I whimpered.