12

In Handover the city of Hsu’s wife Girl the king had Girl arrested and Hsu went to Handover to visit her in prison.

When they left them alone she said to her husband, “You have to do something. John tells me they may have me executed.”

“My God, Girl,” Hsu shouted, “What on Earth did you do?”

“I just told the king that if he didn’t change his ways he and the entire city would go down to the abyss,” Girl said. “Well word got around quickly and the people panicked and a riot started and I am a Bad One or Iaabo had me arrested. But it backfired on him and people demanded he change his ways. But they had no idea apparently what that meant and now they demand my release though none of them believe in Jesus. Iaabo accused me of sedition. My God, Hsu! He is going to kill me! What happens when a Yeu dies? What does it mean?”

“You will not die,” Hsu said, “Jesus has promised that we will never leave Earth but live here forever apparently meaning even me.” Then he shouted for the guard and demanded to be taken to Iaabo.

“Who are you?” Iaabo said, emphasizing the you in his words.

“I am Hsu,” he said and knelt before the king for even John knew it was their only choice to honor the ruler of their people. “I am here about my wife Handover the prophetess who prophesied that you and your kingdom would go to the abyss if you didn’t change your ways and do according to John, the God of this world under Jesus.”

“Is it not true that you are another damned Yeu!” Iaabo shouted at him. “Put him in the tower with that woman!”

“I am willing to go to the tower!” Hsu shouted, “Only do not execute my wife. She had told you only what John had said. Put me in her place! Because I now prophesy the same thing she did but my prophecy is in Jesus your King. I am willing to die for her and the rest of your people for what you are about to do; there will be no end to it.”

King Iaabo raised his hand and they let Hsu go.

“It is true that you are a Yeu,” he said with compassion apparently.

“I was, but I fell and Jesus has saved me,” Hsu said.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself,” Iaabo said, “Religious mumbo jumbo! At a time like this. I will put you in prison and you shall die in her place and I will release her to my people who believe John actually will put us in the abyss.”

“He will,” Hsu said.

“I doubt if the place even exists!” Iaabo shouted, “And even if it does, do you know what my name means? I am a bad one! Do you really think you can make me care what happens to me?” Then he ordered the guards to put him in the very cell where Girl was and to release her.

When they brought him to the tower they unlocked the door and released Girl who fell on her husband the moment she saw crying, “You have saved me, my husband!”

But when she saw that he was in chains she wondered and then realized what he had done and began screaming as they dragged her away and went into her cell with Hsu.

She fought them all the way to the palace doors where the people were waiting and cheered her release as she cried but could not be heard, “It is not what you think! Iaabo will kill my husband in my stead! Please! Please listen to me!” But they would not quiet down supposing they would now be saved from the abyss and whenever she resumed shouting they cheered and there was so much merriment they could not hear her, supposing she was praising John or something.

Meanwhile the guards beat Hsu to death in her very cell in the tower and brought his body to the doors of the palace where the people were still cheering.

As the doors opened they expected even Hsu alive and well but the guards simply laid his battered body before them and locked and bolted the palace doors and a deathly silence came over the crowd.

“This is a Yeu,” they said, “Has anyone ever seen a dead Yeu before! What has Iaabo done to us? This sin is worse than what he had done to the prophetess. Oh, what will happen to us now?”

Then they broke up, each going to his own house to wail leaving Girl alone at the palace gate lying atop Hsu and crying softly, “I tried to tell them, Owpe! I tried,” and wound up in hysterics screaming at the empty streets, “I tried!!! I tried!!! You are all dead!!! I tried to tell you, but you would not let me!!! Damn you!!! Damn you all!!!”

They were amazed that anyone would actually dare die for another, even one they thought still a Yeu.

“Cursed! We are all cursed!” a man who came near enough to hear her as he cried out. “Iaabo is cursed!!! And we are too!!! We are all cursed!!!” and very many heard themboth. “Death to the Yeus!!! They have done this to us!!! Cursed be the Yeus from this day forward!!!”

Some Oojiog missionaries took his body and brought it and Girl back to the Woty, the Wilderness of the Yeus which was actually surrounded now by the people of Twowo bearing the news that from Handover to  the rest of the eastern kingdom people were all up in arms cursing the Yeus instead of their own kings and the emperor saying, “Next Iaabo will come with an army and massacre all Yues.”

But how can they live forever on Earth if Iaabo actually did such a thing?

They were still talking this way when Jesus and Hsu stood in front of the entire population of the Woty.

“They will come,” Jesus said to them.

“Surely not my King,” Hsu said, “You will protect us.”

Jesus looked at Hsu with great compassion for he was thinking the only reason he had died was because he had fallen to the wilderness of Twowo for sedition the day that Sitroe was beheaded.

“You will all be spirit now like Hsu,” Jesus said, “But first the sin of Iaabo must be filled to where it is utterly sinful.”

Then Jesus went up from them and John stood next to Hsu with Girl out of her mind. He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder as she looked at him thinking she was dead and came back to her own mind realizing finally that it was Hsu and she ran to him and they hugged and kissed like newlyweds while the other Yeus all wondered what this meant that they would die for Hsu they could see, but no Yeu that had never been cursed and banished to Twowo had ever died.

They took Hsu’s body and wrapped it in grave clothes and put it high on a bier at the entrance to the Woty, the pass through the mountains into the forest where the Yeus all made their camps and at the swamp on the backside of the Woty where all the dung and offal was taken for the swamp drained into the desert for every camp they put a figure made of pitch and bark that looked like a man about Hsu’s size just in case they should enter through the dump.

Then they waited for Iaabo to come and everyone that had a drum beat the funeral march into the night and from early in the morning saying, “Iaabo will come.”

All those where John was from in Yogcoa and those where Jesus was from the New Earth were heartsick to think of the slaughter to come.

They came.

On the morning of the third day the Yeus awoke and began beating the funeral march and all the Yeus gathered according to families and went to the entrance just to their side of the pass. John led them.

A huge army, no one but God knows how many there were and nobody cares for they represented all of Twowo came through the pass all crowded together remembering what Jesus had done that time he made himself King of Earth albeit literally for a little while before he left.

Iaabo came out front and John walked out to greet him. They stood there in silence until John said, “What you are about to do, do it quickly,” and the thunders roared, the wind blew and beat the trees and lightning flashed but they all stood in their places. 

Then Iaabo raised his sword and even nature was silent and very very still as he swung his sword and cut John’s head off with a single swing of his sabre. It was still and soundless as if even the flies and the bees were holding their breath. Then Iaabo added this to his sin, he cut John’s corpse into seventeen pieces as he raged at the sight of his body assuming he was the leader of the Yeus. Everyone on both sides were stunned to see their God stricken and lying as rubble beneath the feet of the evil Iaabo.

Afpij, now called Afpoty meaning; A famous person of the Yeus, was next to come to where the bloody sight of his dead God lay and said to Iaabo, “Don’t do this,” in great sadness and compassion for the raging Iaabo. “You have been raised up for this moment,” Afpoty said as the sky cleared and the moon shone, for it had turned dark as the darkest night when Iaabo had finished doing what he did to John and everyone, especially Iaabo, was afraid. But he turned on Afpoty and did the same thing to him causing the other soldiers to advance and do the same in the moonlight to all of the Yeus family by family Yeu by Yeu until only Man and Lady were left. Lady they just killed but they strung Man to a treelimb with his hands hanging down all the way to the ground and took turns slashing his body until only his left foot hung in the tree too high to be reached.

Though there were no clouds the peals of the thunder were deafening and the lightning flashes lit the night as if it were mid-day and fireballs went through the army killing thousands as they all ran blindly back through the pass with hail the size of boulders falling on them. As a result only a small remnant of Iaabo’s forces ever reached the safety of the military camp in Handover again with no one knowing what had happened to Iaabo.

He was taken by John’s angels who bound him hand and foot with large chains and threw him into the abyss. 

After they ran off John stood at the sight and moved his arms toward sky and the ground and the offal and the bodies all went to the dump and great was the pile.

Then starting with Man and ending with Afpoty and Hsu all of the Yeus reappeared completely unharmed before John at the entrance and Hsu’s body was set aflame and quietly they went back to their camps and never ate or drank anything ever again but they were spirit now just as they always had actually been when Hsu was taken by Jesus to the New Earth.

The Gods were quiet and at the campsites of the Yeus no one said anything for over a month. But there had been darkness throughout all of earth and from that day until its end night was day and day was night as a testimony to the day the Yeus were massacred.

Now Afpoty appeared to the Highest of the Kings of Twowo or Thotkot while he was in his tea room alone with both doors locked and no one else inside.

“Thotkot,” he said, “The end of Twowo has come before John. Everyone will die both the good and the evil. There will be no one left but one evil man for what Iaabo did.”

“Not if I conquer the world we won’t die!” Thotkot yelled and they heard him outside yelling, “You will not destroy the entire Earth!!”

When they kicked the doors open there stood Thotkot alone and they marveled.

Then he disappeared for everything had changed but nothing was different with the Yeus being like ghosts.

Afpoty also appeared to He is the Lord’s All or Hitla.

He said, “Greetings Hitla. I have some bad news. The end of the Earth has come before John. You will all die and go to New Earth and the Twowo to the abyss. Thotkot will come against the western nation. You must fight him to the last man. Then they will be changed by Jesus and live in the New Earth also until forever.”

Afpoty disappeared and Hitla was amazed that the ghost of a Yeu had appeared to him and not a God.

So he said, “Lord Jesus, is this so, what I hear?”

“It is up to John,” Jesus said. “He never told Thotkot to attack you. You must not attack them or all of yours will be evil as they are. Prepare for war. Trust me. You will not be an embarrassment to anyone.”

Hitla had expected something, but this?