I first conceived of Crux as a short story more than a decade ago. Having been an avid science fiction fan for the better part of a half-century, having read countless time travel books, I've never encountered one that dealt with one of the most singular events in Western Culture: the Birth of Christianity. (I later found one, Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man)
So I wrote the story, put it up on Medium, and kind of forgot about it. But then two things happened. I came across Preacher on Netflix. It's a comic book adaptation: a wildly sacrilegious, even profane take on our shared heritage – not for the faint of heart. I loved it.
And I got re-immersed in the world of all things Biblical researching A King's Lot.
I realized I had to put Crux on paper. Couldn't wait to finish A King's Lot so I could start working on it.
I'm about half-way done with the Crux, and will most likely publish it with an online-first publisher as soon as the ink dries. If you're a fan of Preacher, or for that manner of Dan Brown's Da Vinci code, or Umberto's The Name of the Rose, I promise you'll love Crux.
See below if you'd like an early peek. And sign up for updates by clicking that Get button!
Jesus, where are the fucking caves?
Kane scanned the paper map again. Here was the Qumran brook. Hebron and the Machpelah lay somewhere to the southwest. But where were the openings? He’d toured the place after Christina’s revelation. Wanted to see it with his own eyes, though of course the museum didn’t have his scroll. But the topography was all wrong. Shifted. Erosion? Two thousand years of it? Should have gotten a current drone report ahead of time.
Time.
He smirked. His brain had long since stopped protesting the contradictions.
The late morning sun hammered his back, the air searing his lungs. But better that than making the trek to the Hinnom valley in the dead of night, the bandits in the hills a bigger danger than the Essenes that might discover him now. And Gehenna? Safe, supposedly, since Josiah eradicated the Moloch cult. Supposedly.
He shuddered. At least he’d never had to bring a child to that kind of knife. Thank God for small favors.
Hear that, Kane? Thank you. Now come on, walk. It’s likely just beyond this ridge.
His left foot found air.
He pitched forward, hands flailing, fingers snatching the thin branches of a nearby broom tree. Darkness stared at him from below. His right knee scraped on chalk, sending a cascade of small stones rattling down the hole. He hung there, breath ragged, hands straining against his own weight, afraid to let go.
Three-meter drop. He couldn’t risk it.
Well, Kane, it looks like you’ve found cave 4a.
He bent forward, gaining leverage, head nearly inside the cave, then swung his body to the right, half expecting to fall. He hit limestone, a sharp outcrop rewarding his back with an edge that might have broken a rib if not for the goat-hair sack he carried. He lay there, eyes shut tight against the glare, chest heaving.
Did the commotion alert their sentries?
His luck held.
He sat up with a wince, checked the bag. Nothing broken. A miracle.
Time for the rope. Nice, heavy hemp fiber, strong enough for the climb, strong enough for the drop. He hammered a bronze stake near the broom tree’s roots, testing it against his weight. A skeleton found in Cave 4a would not do at all. Though who knows, the Essenes might have dealt with it. He tried to banish the thought.
He dropped the coil into the cave’s mouth, the rope’s slap against the ground below startling a few bats, making him duck. Feet over the edge, he took out the parchment for a last sunlit check.
Vellum. Finest Texas Longhorn money can buy. Though he used authentic lampblack. Paradox accomplished, as instructed.
For the avoidance of doubt.
He’d argued for copper, but they told him no need. “It was found perfectly preserved.”
Unlike you. But try and figure that one out, Dr. Kane, back in 2035.
He smiled at the hieratic style numerals. “We cannot do that,” Christina said when he suggested using digits. “The vellum is to convince you. You will demand a carbon dating test. But you won’t be the first one to read this.”
He sealed the scroll jar tight.
It took three strikes of the flint against the wick of his Herodian-style oil lamp for the flame to catch. He climbed down, feet grasping the rope in a scissor grip as it made a sickening sawing sound against the sharp limestone edge, the chalk dust threatening to send him into an apocalyptic sneeze.
He held it in, relieved when his feet touched the uneven ground.
The place was deserted. Dust and ancient salt in the air. But he saw them. Scroll jars, some upright, some on their side, in niche after niche in the walls of the cave.
He brought the oil lamp closer to one of the niches. A little damp. One that was carved out by water, not chisel.
Here, he remembered. Sideways, and to the back.
Tempted to search for the stairs of the main entrance, he squinted down the long tunnel at the cave’s rear. Was it empty?
Better not. His luck had held, but he could still run into one of them. These Children of the Light.
He pulled on the rope, glancing upward. No sign that his weight had cut the fiber too deeply. He blew out the light, discarding the lamp, and the walls of the cave fell back into darkness, the rays of the sun overhead holding him in a column of light.
He started the arduous climb back up.