“Don’t kill Laban!”
I’m late. The boy’s sword hangs in midair above the drunk man passed out on the cobblestones. A minute later and the man’s head would be rolling down the street, his fine clothes stained with blood instead of just vomit.
The boy cranes his neck to look at me. Then he turns to the figure on his other shoulder and I spy Raguel hovering there, shaking his head in exasperation.
“Another angel?” the mortal asks incredulously.
“Hardly,” Raguel answers, taking his halo off and polishing it on his white robe. He always does that when he’s annoyed. “That’s Abyzou. She’s the demon of miscarriage, actually, so don’t trust everything she says.” He places the halo back on his head. “But the Lord has commanded you to kill this man, so there’s no need to listen to her anyway.”
I cross my arms and peer around the back of the boy’s head to glare at the angel. “That, Nephi, is an ad hominem attack. And an appeal to authority. So how about we calm down and think this through?” I point to the limp body. “Mr. Drunk isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Nephi glances back and forth between the two of us and lowers the blade to the ground. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Raguel rolls his eyes. “Appeal to authority Balaam’s ass! The Lord isn’t some pop star giving his opinion on medicine. He was the one who wrote the Law!”
“And what does the Law say, Nephi, about killing?”
The boy stares at me for a moment, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “For Abraham’s sake, can you both get off? I swear my head will split open if I have to talk to you like this for a second longer.”
Raguel nods at me and we leap off his shoulders at the same time. When Nephi opens his eyes, we’ve both grown to human height and are standing on the ground beside him. He eyes my swinging tail but seems unfazed. “Thanks.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, obviously I want to keep the Law. But that’s because it’s from the Lord. It was the Lord who commanded my father to leave Jerusalem in the first place. And it was the Lord who sent me and my brothers all the way back here to get the brass plates from Laban. We begged and bartered, but this swine—” he gestures at the body beneath us, eyes flashing with contempt, “—stole our father’s wealth and tried to kill us. Then my brothers blamed me, but your friend here—”
“Colleague,” I correct him.
“—stopped them from beating me to a pulp and guided me back into the city, where I found Laban just lying here carrying the very sword with which he threatened me a few hours ago.”
“The Lord delivered him into your hands,” Raguel says quietly.
“Bathsheba was delivered into David’s hands,” I retort. “Does that mean he was justified in raping her and killing Uriah?”
“This man is a thief and an attempted murderer,” the angel points out. “The Law condemns him to death.”
“Then by all means, find a judge. But you—” I turn from Raguel to the boy, “—are no judge. You’ve never killed before. With any luck, you’ll never kill again. Why taint yourself with such an evil act now?”
Nephi frowns. “If the Lord commands it, it can’t be evil.”
“No?” My tail begins flicking back and forth, a nervous tick I’m sure Raguel recognizes. “Does the Lord follow what’s righteous, or does he define what’s righteous?”
“He, um, defines—”
My voice rises. “Tell me, Nephi, is there anything your Lord could command that you wouldn’t do?”
“I—the Lord would never ask for something bad,” Nephi stammers. “I might be too weak to follow, but—”
“Is that so?” I laugh. “Let’s see about that.” I raise a hand.
“Byz—” Raguel warns.
“No, Raguel. Today I’m the ghost of sacrifice past.” I snap my fingers, and suddenly, seamlessly, the dark city is replaced by a sunlit hill covered in dry grass and brush. An ugly wail breaks the silence, and we notice the two figures in front of us. One is an old man, face on the dirt, sobbing. He pounds the earth with his fists, one of which holds a dagger. In front of him is a child, bound and also crying, lying on a stone altar.
Nephi gasps and his hands fly to his face. “Abraham,” he breathes, “Father Abraham. And Isaac.” He takes a step toward them. “They can’t hear me, can they? This is just a vision.” He looks at me intensely and I nod.
“But if they could, what would you say?” I demand. “Would you tell them it’s alright, that Isaac doesn’t have to die? Would you dissuade the father from sacrificing his son? From obeying the commandment of the Lord?”
Nephi says nothing. After another minute of listening to the hellish screams, I see tears on his cheeks. “I don’t know,” he finally replies. “I don’t know.”
“Nephi,” Raguel speaks softly, but the boy’s head jerks up as if he had forgotten the angel was there. “The Lord’s ways are not your ways. Trust in him with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding,” he quotes. “Let me show you the path the Lord is preparing.” I roll my eyes, but he lifts his hands and claps once.
In an instant we’re all in the air, floating above a desert oasis. “My family’s camp,” Nephi notes, pointing at the tents below us. “My father. And… me!” he shouts in surprise.
Raguel smiles. “You see the bound pages that your father is reading? Those are the brass plates. The law and the prophets, the genealogy of your fathers. After you return with them, your father reads them and learns the way of the Lord. As do you. Their teachings convince your brothers to stay with you. More importantly, when you return to Jerusalem—”
“Again?” Nephi asks in disbelief.
“—your ownership of the plates convinces Ishmael to leave with you. He brings his sons… and daughters.”
“Really?” I object. “An appeal to emotion?” The angel ignores me.
Without warning, the ground speeds away from us and is replaced by the sea. A ship sails beneath us, cutting through the waves in fast forward. Seconds later, it lands on a verdant shore.
“You will travel to the promised land and found a great people, Nephi. A nation with dozens of kings and hundreds of prophets. But without the law, without the death of one man, they would all dwindle and perish in unbelief.” Nephi’s jaw drops and his eyes widen as he watches the people below spread like ants across the landscape.
I cross my arms. “Another lesson in ethics, Nephi.” He glances up at me. “Classic consequentialism. Very tempting. If there were a trolley—er, wagon, hurtling toward a whole nation, who wouldn’t rather turn it to hit a single lying drunkard instead? The end justifies the means.” He nods, barely listening. “But here’s the problem, Nephi. What happens when everyone acts that way?”
It takes him a moment to realize I’ve asked him a question. “When everyone acts that way?” he repeats.
I nod. “What if Laban only kept the brass plates to save his people from perishing in unbelief? On the other hand, what if both of you lived by the principle, ‘Thou shalt not kill’?” He frowns. “That’s deontology. Virtue ethics.”
“Are you really such an expert on virtue ethics?” Raguel interrupts, though not unkindly. “Is that why you rebelled against the Lord in heaven? For virtue?”
I purse my lips. “You mock, but that’s correct. It’s a personal rule of mine to vote against any cosmic plan that condemns a single soul to eternal damnation. Regardless of the consequences.”
Raguel smiles sadly. Then his eyes focus on the temple rapidly being constructed beneath us. “So you would condemn an entire civilization? Perhaps you would.” He turns to Nephi. “But would you?”
I raise a hand. “Wait, Nephi. Let’s see what becomes of this nation of yours.”
With three pairs of eyes trained on them, the tribe grows like wildfire. Unsurprisingly, the people split into tribes and fight against each other. But this only spreads the flames farther apart.
I point into the distance, and with a start Nephi notices the other people there. Nations that walked here tens of thousands of years ago, following great beasts across a narrow neck of land in the frozen wastes to the north. Now there are millions of them in thousands of cultures spread throughout the land.
As the two peoples approach each other, the air grows tense. They meet in a blinding flash. When our eyes recover, we see that Nephi’s people have swept across the previous inhabitants like flames over dry grass, fueled by bloodshed and the diseases they carried across the sea.
With a look of horror, Nephi brings his hands to his head. “Like the Canaanites under Joshua,” he says in horror. “Please, make it stop!”
I snap, and we’re back in Jerusalem, Laban at our feet. “Or you can return to your father empty-handed. Your oldest brothers will return to Jerusalem, while you and the rest of your family take refuge in Egypt. You wouldn’t have your own nation, but you would live a good life.”
Nephi sits down on the street and breathes deeply. We sit silently for a few minutes and listen to the braying of donkeys and the crying of babies in the distance. Then he looks up at me. “Raguel accused you of being the demon of miscarriage. Is that true? Why would you care what happens to millions of mortals, let alone this man?”
I sigh and sit down next to him. “Angels—and gods—have different priorities. Bodily autonomy—the control you have over your own self—is very important to me and to the Lady I serve. If no babies ever died in the womb, how many more women would be forced into a life they didn’t choose! So in some cases, I take the babies. And at times, I let the woman make her own decision.”
“And yet you won’t allow a soul to damn itself.” Raguel is polishing his halo again.
“No one really wants damnation. They just need time. The Lady knows that.” I gesture to the unconscious body. “Of course I oppose his efforts to kill you, Nephi. But I also oppose the reverse. Slaying him would be clean and easy. Like damning anyone who disagrees with you.” I glare pointedly at Raguel. “But I’d rather do what is right and damn the consequences instead.”
Nephi sighs deeply and then lifts his eyes to look at us. “Thank you. Both of you. I understand now what the Lord is asking me to do. But the decision must be mine alone. Please leave me to choose for myself.”
Raguel replaces his halo and stands up straight. “Of course. Farewell, Nephi.”
I smile. “May the Lord and Lady bless you.” Then we vanish from Nephi’s view, reappearing in an expanse of blue and black.
Raguel smiles wistfully and holds out his hand. “Why did you have to come, Biz? He had almost killed the man. And even if he decides to go through with it now, it will haunt him for the rest of his days in a way it wouldn’t have before.”
I take his hand in mine. “For the same reason that our Lady Asherah spoke to Eve in the garden. It’s better to know, colleague.” I kiss him, and he squeezes my hands.
“Send my love to the Lady,” he says, pulling away at last.
“And mine to the Lord,” I reply. “May they end their spat within the next few thousand years.”
“Amen,” he laughs, and flies away.
