Then the prophet’s eyes snapped open. “But he didn’t receive prophecy in the house?”
“No…” I pressed my hand over my eyes, recalling the scene. Eliyahu towered over Ahav, the room shrank around them. The metallic ring of the oath echoed in my ears. That wasn’t prophecy. Could Eliyahu have received a prophecy just before speaking out, while I was focused on the King? “I think…I think he received prophecy only after he left the city.”
“You think, or you know?” Uriel’s eyes bored into mine.
“It wasn’t prophecy.” I sat taller. “I would have noticed if he went into prophecy. And then he was standing there in front of the King…” My voice trailed off, having no words for the experience.
“After you saw Eliyahu in the date grove, what did you do?”
“I continued riding up the mountainside. I feared I wouldn’t get back before sundown tonight.”
“And the King?”
He and his soldiers passed me soon after. They were all on horses.”
“Did anything happen as the King passed?”
“No. I dismounted and stood to the side of the road.” I rubbed a rough spot on the table. “The King didn’t even look my way as he passed.”
Uriel sighed deeply. “You have done well in your tale. It explains much—though one mystery still remains.”
“What does it explain, Master?”
“It explains why the heavens are trembling and why the gates of prophecy have swung wide.”
I frowned at Uriel. Prophecy had gates?
“Eliyahu has taken one of the forbidden keys.”
I shook my head, “Keys?”
“Yes, keys.” Uriel nodded as he spoke, as if I understood, then in one quick motion, he stood. “Do you recall the sisters we met on our first day traveling together?”
I nodded, remembering the anguish of the older sister who wanted to conceive.
“I explained then about the three keys that forever remain in the hands of the Holy One: the key to the womb, the key to the grave, and the key to the sky. Eliyahu has taken the last one—the Key of Rain—in many ways the most powerful of the three.”
“Taken it?”
“Well, I should say he was given it. Who can take a heavenly key by force? But at the time you stood in Hiel’s house, I entered navua here in Emek HaAsefa. I saw Eliyahu’s soul rise to the highest realms, to the Throne of Glory itself. There he demanded the Key of Rain. There was an uproar among the angels. It was enough that he reached such an exalted place—how could he demand one of the keys? But the Holy One granted Eliyahu’s request.”
I’d never heard my master speak like this. “What does that mean?”
“It means that as long as he holds the key, Eliyahu will determine if and when we receive rain.”
“And the prayers we’re offering—?”
“Will not be answered. The Holy One will not bring rain as long as Eliyahu denies it.”
“What about Yambalya and the Baal?”
“They are powerless to bring the rain.”
I pictured the faces of the farmers standing in the morning rain at the wedding. “But I saw—”
“There is no Baal.” My master spoke calmly, but his eyes burned, reminding me of Eliyahu’s. “Remember, the same hand which fashioned the light, made the darkness as well.”
Uriel lifted his eyes to the soot-darkened roof of the cave. “That hand has now granted the power to bring rain to Eliyahu, and to him alone. Neither myself nor Yambalya can do anything affecting the rain, other than pleading with Eliyahu.”
I grinned at the thought of Yambalya and his priests cutting themselves and calling out to the Baal in vain. “So when Eliyahu swore there’d be no rain other than by his word, he knew he held the key?”
Uriel observed me closely. “A well-placed question, and one that I cannot answer. Did Eliyahu know he would receive the key when he made his oath? Did he already hold it? We may never know.”
Encouraged by Uriel’s praise, I pressed the point. “But if the key is never given to man, why would he think he could receive it? He wouldn’t swear otherwise—he must have known.”
“So I believed, that’s why I asked you if he received prophecy in Hiel’s house.” Uriel stroked his beard. “But prophecy is not the only path of power. What the righteous decree, the Holy One carries out.”
“The righteous can bind the Holy One?”
Uriel nodded, his eyes cast in shadow. “You yourself observed a woeful example of this.”
“When?”
“I do not believe the Holy One commanded Joshua to curse the city of Jericho—he was moved by his own spirit to bind the city in ruins forever. But once his lips spoke the curse, the Holy One gave it power.”
The weight of Uriel’s words slowly penetrated. “That’s why Seguv died?”
Uriel nodded. “Hiel’s family has been destroyed by a curse uttered five hundred years ago.”
