The best thing about summer is that it is socially acceptable to have a stack of books you are working through, even when hanging out with friends and family. That’s just what summer is all about: reading.

This summer, I decided to branch out and explore speculative fiction beyond the American and British titles that line the tops of the cabinets and radiator in my Manhattan cubby-hole.

I was going to wait until fall to provide a wrap-up of my favorites, but how does this help you? By the time the autumn leaves have begun to fall, all those cultural free passes that let you just …read while Great Aunt Mildred regales the rest of the family about the tale of what happened to her stomach when she ate the hot pepper… well, they are used up. And you are so, so screwed.

While there’s still time, I’m letting you in on the action; part review, part anticipation.

JUNE
Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo (Finland)
I just loved this one. This is a short novel, and the pace is so intense that you can easily make this an afternoon beach read. Angel is one of the most complex gay protagonists I’ve read in any genre. When he stumbles across an adolescent troll being beaten by a gang of teenage thugs, the parallels to a gay bashing are unmistakable. I very much understood why he brought this wild, dangerous, and injured little creature into his apartment. What I didn’t have figured out was what the hell would happen next. It’s so rare to be completely caught by surprise these days, and that made this book a real treat. Urban fantasy fans will love this international flavor of their favorite genre. Horror fans will love the darkness and dread. Science fiction fans will appreciate the rich interwoven scientific reference works and anthropological books that make this the kind of urban fantasy that you could swear is based on fact. (Winner of the Finlandia Prize for Best Novel, 2004)

The Apex World of SF  edited by Lavie Tidhar
What better way to get a taste for as many international speculative fiction authors as possible than with an anthology? Don’t be fooled by the “SF” in the title, this collection is in the genre-bending Apex tradition, tends towards the dark, and includes fantasy in its mix. All but a few of the stories are in translation, and for me, this was a selling point. It’s rare to get an opportunity to read short fiction in translation by established international authors, but even more of a treat to get to discover emerging ones. One of my favorites stories was Kaaron Warren’s “Ghost Jail.” Set in Fiji, we follow a small group of dissident journalists in a world where ghosts are used to suppress rebellious ideas and activity. To get a taste of this anthology for free, Croatian contributor, Aleksandar Žiljak’s,“An Evening in the City Coffeehouse, with Lydia on My Mind” (a fun little story about pornography, nanotechnology, and turning tricks with aliens) is available on this website.

JULY
[TO READ] Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (Russia)
First published in 1998, Night Watch is the first of the World of Watches series (a tetralogy). The English translation was released in 2006. From what I can tell, this has long been Russia’s urban fantasy obsession, spawning a number of blockbuster Russian movies and an ongoing television series. I found out about Night Watch through my cousin, a Canadian, living in New Zealand, who is dating this Russian guy, who is obsessed with the series. The point has essentially been made, across oceans and cultures, that I am a foolish Westerner for not knowing about these books. The stage is Moscow, but Moscow awash with witches, warlocks, werewolves, vampires, and all other kinds of supernaturals. There is a fierce battle between the Others (Yes, I know, between Lost and George R. R. Martin, I have had my fill of “the Others” too…) and the Night Watch that polices them. I have been promised astute political commentary and philosophical deepness and because I always cheat and Google (Bad! Bad, Eliyanna!) I have a pretty strong sense that I will not be disappointed.

[TO READ]Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (Canada)
Canada’s not so far away, but considering I’m a Canadian native, it’s just plain embarrassing how little Canadian speculative fiction I’ve read. I’m new to the Guy Gavriel Kay party, so forgive me. I was blown away by Tigana and The Fionavar Tapestry and I am very intrigued to read more contemporary Kay. Under Heaven promises to be the historical fantasist’s first foray into a world beyond his usual re-imaginings of Europe. The created world of Kitan is his own take on China’s Ting Dynasty. This was an era of horrible human cost in war, courtly intrigue, and conspiracy. In Kay’s hands, I can only imagine where it all leads.

AUGUST
And… nothing. As you can see, I have space for a few more books on my August summer reading international reading list adventure. If you have suggestions of international (non-American, non-British) speculative fiction to recommend, please comment below.

Also, Readercon opens today! I’m stoked. If you are headed to Burlington, Massachusetts as well, be sure to stop by the Apex Books booth. It’s a great opportunity to grab your copy of the Apex World of SF.

Eliyanna Kaiser lives and works in New York City and enjoys writing all kinds of speculative fiction. Her story, “Different from Other Nights,” appears in Apex Books’ anthology, Dark Faith.

Apex would like to congratulate frequent Apex contributor and author Lavie Tidhar for earning a Geffen Award-nomination for (co-authored with Nir Yaniv) רצח בדיוני, or A Fictional Murder, a humorous murder mystery set in an Israeli science fiction convention.

The Geffen Award is an annual literary award given by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy since 1999, and presented at the Annual Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, ICon Festival. It is named in honor of editor and translator Amos Geffen, who was one of the society’s founders.

(Editor’s note: My apologies. I believed there to be twenty parts to the novella. As you can see there are only sixteen. I’m sure Kung Fu Jesus will have a word with me in the afterlife about this oversight. –Jason)

He is not here.
Matthew 28:8

There are many stories concerning the passing of the Christ, and few truths to be gained by sifting through words, as one would through silt in search of precious gold. What is known, more or less, is this:

When he died a man came to collect his corpse, and he called himself Joseph, and said he was from the country of Arimathaea. It might be that the man had a vaguely piggish appearance, but if so, few make much of the fact. The man took the body from the cross and wrapped it in linen, until only the shape of a man could be discerned inside. He transported the body thus to a fresh tomb hewn in the rock outside Jerusalem, and he placed the appearance of the body inside, and sealed the tomb with a rock; and after that he disappeared.

For three days the tomb was guarded, and women came and sat by the sepulchre, and amongst them Miriam his mother, and Miriam of the town of Migdal, and Miriam the other, and indeed the name Miriam was exceedingly common in those days, and who Miriam the other was I cannot in truth say, but that she wasn’t the first nor the second. And it is said, though I was not witness to it, that on the night of the second day a chariot came and a lone woman, dark-skinned and proud, stepped out from it and sat for a long while by the rock, and spoke words no one could hear; and then she too departed and was not seen in that country again.

On the third day the tomb was opened. The bandages, what is called in Hebrew–tachrichim–were left strewn on the floor. There was no body.

A search of the tomb was ordered, but no hidden exits could be found. His disciples were blamed, accused of stealing the body in the dead of night; but nothing was ever proven. At that time rumours of his reappearance became common. His disciples claimed to have met him on a hill in Nazareth, but there were few to heed their words at that time. The story of he who was called Christ and Buddha was left unended; which was perhaps for the best.

In later years I had heard stories of his appearance in unexpected places. It was rumoured that a man resembling Jesus appeared in the eastern land called India, and healed the sick, and travelled around. And others said he was seen on the distant isle of mist, in a place called by the heathens Glastonbury; and others yet told of his going to some vast and undiscovered continent, a place of barbarous splendour that lay beyond the known world.

As for me. The Procurator was not ungrateful, nor was Caesar back in Rome. I had remained in Judea and advanced through the ranks, and at last had taken command of Yodfat, a military outpost in the Galilee. It was there that I found myself when the Great War finally took place, and the Jews of Judea revolted against the Romans. We made our stand against the empire: but the might of Rome, as always, was too great; and when they had taken Yodfat many thousands were killed and the remaining soldiers preferred to commit suicide rather than to be taken prisoners.

Not so I. It is essential, for a warrior, to be prepared to lose his life in service. Yet when the time for it came, and I saw the futility of further resistance, I wished to live. Suicide is a thing of zealots. Yet I have always believed that being a Jew is first about living, about surviving adversity, not giving in to it. I shall not go into details. Suffice it to say that I was taken captive, had endured, and found it beneficial to assist the Romans with some minor intelligence. I was present at the siege of Jerusalem and witness to its destruction. And, at last, I was taken to Rome in the entourage of Flavius Vespasian and his son, Titus, and became a Roman citizen; amen.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Matthew 27:51-53

They came with swords and staves but they were not needed. They came with authority, but it went unanswered. I think he expected me to kiss him, to mark him in some way, but that too was unnecessary. Everyone knew Jesus. They came in a guard of men and I led them, and we took hold of Jesus and took him to the Procurator.

‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Pilate said, and Jesus said, ‘Ata amarta,’ which means, You said it, or, That’s what you say.

‘I am innocent of his blood,’ Pilate said, and he called for water and washed his hands and then said, ‘Send him to be crucified.’

And so it was. The cross was erected in the place they call Golgotha, that is, the place of golgalot, of skulls. To either side of him was a thief. The nails were driven in, and he was left to die. The rebel was caught without a fight. Order was restored. A hush lay on the earth, expectant; like the humidity that presages a storm.

‘Tripitaka.’

‘Tripitaka!’

‘Leave me.’

‘Why do you always have to get into such trouble?’

The crucified man smiled. ‘I was a fool,’ he said.

Pigsy snorted. ‘Ata amarta. We’ll get you out of here.’

‘Leave me.’

Of the three only Monkey was silent. It was dark on the hill of skulls. It had been dark for several hours. Sūn Wùkōng peered into the dying man’s face, and they held each other’s eyes for a long moment. ‘I was a fool,’ the man on the cross said again, and smiled, though it looked more like a grimace of pain. ‘Please forgive me.’

‘Tripitaka!’ – ‘Tripitaka!’

But Monkey silenced his two companions. ‘So it is true,’ he said at last, and the crucified man nodded.

‘I no longer have a name,’ he said and looked surprised, ‘I see…’ but he did not complete the thought. His eyes took on a faraway gaze, and Monkey knew that the man was truly seeing now, that mara, the illusion of the world, was lifted from before his eyes at last. He was close to nirvana now. He said, ‘Master…’ and the bound man shook his head, a minute movement, and said, ‘No more, Sūn Wùkōng. There are no masters in the Republic of Heaven. You are free.’

The gold band on the Monkey King’s head began to vibrate. Slowly, it seemed to expand, its pressure on his head easing. It slipped from his head and hovered in the air above it; and then it broke.

‘Fool, companion, king,’ the crucified man said, and though his face was twisted in pain his eyes contained a smile, ‘it is time to seek your own wisdom. Friends–‘ his eyes sought out Pigsy’s and Sandy’s, ‘farewell.’

His last words to them, as soft as the sound of distant waves carried on the wind, were, ‘Follow the eightfold path…’

In the time of his death there was an earthquake. The tremors pulsed through the ground and shook tables and chairs and felled cups and flagons, and great stones rolled, and graves broke open.

And from the graves rose an army of corpses, though many had lain in the ground for many years and were but skeletons; and when the people saw them they were understandably upset. And the army of the dead men rose in the darkness and converged on the city of white stone, and the people fled before them. The dead marched through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, and some of them were only freshly dead, and their deaths had been violent. So it was that the men who died in the skirmishes were alive again, if only for a moment, and if not alive then at least undead; and they walked through the streets and the people barred their doors and shut their windows; and after that the night was silent.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the Passover.
Matthew 26:19

‘I like pigeons,’ Pigsy said a little later. Two of the birds had made the mistake of landing, for a moment, on the pig-shaped statue. Now nothing remained of them but a couple of belched feathers that floated, forlorn, in the air.

Someone was singing. It sounded a little like ‘Jesus loves you more than you might think.’

Monkey said, ‘He’s in trouble now.’

‘The Romans are in trouble,’ Pigsy said. Monkey shook his head.

‘They have a story here,’ Sandy said, ‘David and Goliath. He was one of their early kings.’

‘Goliath?’

‘David. He was a boy with a catapult and he felled a giant.’

‘You’d need one hell of a big catapult to fell the Roman Empire,’ Monkey said.

‘Let’s get drunk,’ Pigsy said. ‘Where is that boy soldier from Rome?’

‘Josephus? Not seen him.’

‘Must be up to no good.’

‘Let’s go.’

They went.

Accounts of his last days are numerous, and I shall therefore not offer too many details in this, the chronicle of Jesus, he who was called in various times the rebel, the troublemaker, the Hebrew Fist or the Buddha. The three companions called him the Tripitaka, which is the embodiment of their laws, but when used thus it merely denotes a man: a seeker on the path to nirvana–and it is said that the road is full of false trails and traps of quicksand for the unwary traveller. In any event, I arrived in Jerusalem after the affair in the temple, and was in time to see the beginning of the conflict.

Jews do fight and fight well. The Greeks can testify to that, the Canaanites and the Philistines and many others. But to be a Jew, too, and to survive the long centuries, the rise and fall of mighty empires, is to know, too, how to lose well. In any event, and following the temple incident, the small revolt began.

In the narrow streets of Jerusalem fighting erupted. Roman soldiers were ambushed and slain. Confrontations took place hourly, in squares and open spaces, but the real fighting was done in the side streets and urban areas: it was a war in the margins of the city.

The council of the Sanhedrin was alarmed. So was Pilate but to a lesser extent. He had, after all, the whole might of Rome behind him; and in the middle of the second day he called for me, and I came to see him.

‘Josephus,’ he said. ‘Who is this troublesome man?’

‘They say he is a messiah,’ I replied. ‘When he was born a star shone over Bethlehem.’

‘The stars shine over many places,’ Pilate said. ‘If they made messiahs out of men then the whole world would be filled.’

I inclined my head at that. ‘Nevertheless,’ I said. ‘He has a following.’

‘And they are militant. What is the manner of their fighting?’

‘I believe it is called Xao-lin.’

‘Shaolin? What barbarous language is that?’

I said I did not know.

‘From the east, I hear,’ he said, and his shrewd eyes observed me while I said nothing. He shrugged. ‘You have your instructions,’ he said at last, and I inched my head again at that. ‘It is Passover in two days. There will be no fighting. I… I will declare an amnesty. Let the Jews settle the matters of the Jews. You know what to do. Can I trust you to do that?’

‘I will do what is necessary,’ I said stiffly. He smiled and dismissed me.

On the night of the seder, the Passover meal, I sat with Jesus and his followers in Jerusalem and we celebrated the escape of our people from Egypt. Jesus was in a subdued mood. At some point a woman came to him and poured oil over his face and clothes from an alabaster box. The oil ran down his long hair and stained his beard.

The day before, standing in a market square with his men spread around him like bodyguards, he seemed to have lost it a little. ‘Hypocrites!’ he shouted. ‘Woe unto you! Fools and blind! Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity!’ And then he launched into a tirade that took even me by surprise. ‘You serpents!’ he shouted, and the people around him turned back in fright. ‘You generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?’

It was not a speech designed to make new converts.

I sat with him at the seder table, in the house of Simon, the leper, and the oil ran down his face and he said, ‘She did it for my burial.’

I had not heard him so grim before. But something had changed in Jesus in those last days. Perhaps it was the sight of the bloodshed. Perhaps the people’s reactions to his attack on them. No one likes to be called a viper. Something fundamental changed in him, and he seemed quieter, darkened, like a lamp about to burn off. And at last he turned to me (for I was sitting on his right) and he said and with a slight smile–‘You know what to do, Josephus. Can I trust you to do that?’

I shook my head, and he said it again; until finally I nodded.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers.
Matthew 21:12

Look at them go, look at them go, Jesus and his gang! Look at them go, with a force, with a bang!

It was a quiet day at the temple. The sky was blue and clear. The white stone walls were clean and still looked fresh, young in years, old in purpose. The cohanim had departed inside. In the great yard only the usual bustle of morning visitors and the trade sounds in the various religious stalls could be heard.

The mob appeared gradually. They had sneaked into Jerusalem over several days, unnoticed, unobtrusive. Perhaps the narrow streets felt a little busier but that was all. Yet now they gathered. And now they were felt.

Were a man to look closely at the yard of the temple, he might have seen three strange shapes, three statues standing a solitary guard. Grey stone they were immovable and ancient and to man barely noticeable. Only their eyes were alive, but no man looked at their eyes. One had the appearance of a wizened monkey. One seemed a little like a pig or an Egyptian hippopotamus. A third, thin and sour, with a sheen of water on his stony skin. If such statues could speak, this is perhaps what they would have said:

‘I don’t think it’s such a good idea,’ Pigsy said.

‘None of us do,’ Monkey said. ‘But it is not up to us. Let the Tripitaka fight his own battles.’

‘Nothing can be achieved by fighting in a temple,’ Sandy said. ‘Even if it’s not a proper temple.’

‘It is to them,’ Monkey said mildly.

Sandy snorted. ‘It isn’t the role of a Tripitaka to pick fights. And anyway, what if he needs to borrow money?’

‘Then he can ask his mother,’ Pigsy said, and snorted. The mob was approaching, but for now, inside the walls, it was peaceful.

‘A Buddha is a man of peace,’ Sandy said.

The Monkey statue, for one impossible moment, seemed to shrug. ‘But we are not.’

‘That is why we are only his companions,’ Sandy said.

But the Monkey statue seemed to shake its head. ‘We only follow the Tripitaka as he himself follows the path to enlightenment,’ he said. ‘He is on that path yet. He will learn, at last.’

‘Do we join in?’ Pigsy said. ‘I feel like fighting.’

‘We’ll have time yet,’ Monkey said–it seemed with relish. ‘For now we wait, and watch.’

The mob came to the gates. At its head was Jesus. He wore loose flowing robes, multicoloured, that seemed to shine in the sun. A felt belt, black, closed around his narrow waist.

There were two guards outside. One said, ‘You can’t come in here like this!’

The other took one look at the situation and turned to run. Jesus soared into the air.

He was like a maelstrom, like a hurricane sweeping in from the Great Sea and into the coastal areas, sucking up everything in its path. He rose in a graceful arc, seemed for a moment to freeze (or was it the world around him, slowing?) and lashed out. His foot connected with the remaining guard’s face.

The guard dropped like a stone statue.

‘He’s good,’ Pigsy said. ‘That was a Crouching Monkey Jump.’

Monkey said, ‘We trained him well.’

‘I could do with a cup of tea,’ Sandy said.

Jesus and his men marched into the temple. A shout rose in the air.

Jesus came and stopped before a long table. Behind it a man of quite noticeable bulk was sitting comfortably. ‘Yes, young man?’ he said. He seemed not to see the crowd pressing behind Jesus. ‘You would like to purchase a dove? Speak to a cohen? Bring a sacrifice to the sacred altar? Whatever your religious needs, we can help.’

‘I am religious need,’ Jesus said.

For a moment it seemed as if the monkey statue had covered its eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ it might have said.

Jesus grasped the long table with his hands. ‘Is this a Roman temple?’ he said, ‘or a Jewish one?’

‘A temple,’ the fat man said mildly, ‘is a temple.’

Jesus shook his head. ‘This won’t do,’ he said. The fat man wobbled and for a moment seemed to think of rising. Then he laid his large hands on the table and leaned forward. ‘You the young preacher from the Galilee?’ he said. ‘The one been making all that trouble up north?’

Jesus said mildly, ‘What if I am?’

‘Then you can bloody well go back to the Galilee, country boy!’ the fat man said. Several men further down from him laughed.

‘Please don’t piss him off,’ Sandy said, though of course no one heard him.

Jesus’ hands tightened on the table. ‘That’s it, boy,’ Monkey said. ‘Focus your ch’i.’

Jesus raised his hands. The table, with one impossibly sweeping motion, flew in the air and landed with a crash breaking on the stony floor. The fat man rocked in his chair and fell, landing on his back. A shocked silence settled, for a flickering moment, over the yard.

Then the silence, too, broke. Enraged men charged at Jesus. His disciples spread out across the yard.

‘Bloodshed,’ Sandy said and seemed to shake his head. ‘I do not call this following the path.’

‘That’s right,’ Pigsy said. ‘We’re the ones should be doing the fighting.’

The attacking men were almost on Jesus. He leaped into the air again, his legs pulled under him. His hands were a blur of motion. When he landed more men were lying comatose on the ground of the temple.

‘Can we join in? Please, Monkey?’ Pigsy said.

‘Let the boy play.’

A man charged Jesus with a knife. Jesus dodged, rose effortlessly behind the man and landed a blow that felled the knife–and the man. Another man charged him with a staff and he jumped between the swipes and somehow, a moment later, remained holding the staff alone, his opponent on the ground.

All over the temple ground fights had broken out. Pockets of violence erupted, occasionally merged, until at last the whole floor of the yard seemed to be one heaving mob of people, screaming and cursing and spilling each other’s blood.

Birds were screaming. A man was thrown and hit their cages and a latch sprang open. A multitude of white doves rose into the air.

‘The army is coming,’ Sandy said.

‘The army!’ the shout rose a moment later. ‘The army is coming!’

With one graceful impossible movement Jesus rose in the air, reached the top of the wall, somersaulted above it and was gone behind, and his men all followed. Soon the only remaining thing in the temple’s wide yard were the bruised and aching bodies of men struggling to get up, while high overhead the white doves flew, in a vast cloud that spread away from Jerusalem.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws.
Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

Matthew, in his somewhat long-winded account of the Christ, tells us that “it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.” To that I say:

It was quite a party.

I had been living in Rome for some time and was not a stranger to such scenes, but I must confess that Jesus could really gather them together.

Jesus amused the guests by turning water into wine. Scenes of drunkenness inevitably followed. Pigsy was lolling against one wall, a tankard of wine in one hand, a painted Jezebel in the other. Monkey was demonstrating martial arts to several anxious disciples. Sandy was nowhere to be seen. Music wafted through the warm air alongside the smells of roasting meat, spilled wine, and perfume. Jesus seemed in good spirits, almost serene. For a change he wasn’t preaching, just hanging out, talking quietly with some guests, keeping an eye on everyone.

The message I received from Caesar was troubling. Pontius, the procurator (the “tax-collector” as Jesus called him and with some justification) was mobilising the army to go back to Jerusalem from Caesarea, the new Roman town on the shore of the Great Sea.

Jesus had been quiet recently. He had returned from his journeys and for a time seemed content to sit idly, yet even so with every passing day more people came to join him, men and women both, some high and some low, but all drawn to him and to his cause. I had my suspicions. I had communicated with Rome by cipher, and my conclusion was uneasy: Jesus was intending to march on Jerusalem.

Would he confront Pilate? I did not know the man, but heard he was a good administrator. He came from a place called Vienne; a good citizen of Rome, ambitious–but not too much–and was having his hands full with the taxation problem in Syria, not to mention the internal problems in Judea with Jewish politics and the escalating conflicts within the Sanhedrin, the council of judges. Being a Roman procurator was a demanding job. Taxes had to be collected. Possibilities of rebellion had to be kept down. Administration… I lifted my eyes as I thought this and saw Jesus looking at me. There was a twinkle in his eyes. What was he planning?

I decided that night to take my leave of him. I wanted to see the country again, see for myself what its citizens thought, what they may have wanted, what changes were being wrought by the Romans. I was a man with his feet on two sides of a river, and I feared a flood.

The next day I set out for Jerusalem. The journey was long and pleasant. I passed through the Galilee and on to the shore of the Great Sea and made my way without hurry to the mountains where Jerusalem sits.

Stories of Jesus still reached my ears. Healing the sick. Walking on water. And making speeches. I began to fear Jesus. Later historians tried to make him a man of peace. But he was not. He was a focus for change, and change is violent and disruptive. Jesus said, ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” These words echoed that year across Judea.

When I spoke with Sūn Wùkōng, much later, after all these things had indeed come to a head, he expressed his view of the time in a short almost brusque manner. ‘The Tripitaka,’ he said, ‘did not follow the eightfold path. His nature is to stray, to be lost, to err. Only by journeying so can he learn to follow the true path and achieve the state of the Buddha.’ Then he said, ‘Walking on water is easy. You just have to make sure you don’t drown.’ He smiled then a little ruefully it had seemed to me. ‘Attaining true wisdom is harder.’

In any case, my journey was pleasant and on the whole uneventful. I did stop at Caesarea, but only caught up with the army when I at last reached Jerusalem, and saw again my home, that eternal city to which even Rome is no match, Jerusalem of the Temple and of King David and of the Ark of Covenant: Jerusalem the city of white stone.

There would be no water to walk on in this city, I thought to myself then. The stones of Jerusalem are not as pliable. In the following days I watched the life of the city, the battles of ideology, of politics, of belief, between the Pharisees and Sadducees, the work of the Great Sanhedrin, Pilate’s work on the water aqueduct to Jerusalem, the completion of Herod’s great temple–but more than that, I merely sat in the markets and spoke to my people and listened and smelled the city with its spices and cloth and merchandise from all across the known world, and Rome seemed, for the moment, to recede away from me as if in a dream.

Yet I knew enough of the nature of dreams to dread the waking up.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

They [our books], indeed, contain in them the history of five thousand years; in which time happened many strange accidents [and] many chances of war.
Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

But let us abandon, for the moment, my conversation with the three strange beings from the east, and turn away, across the sea, and to the affairs of Yeshua, he who was indeed called the Christ, the The Hebrew Fist, and the Great Soul. For this, the time of my coming as agent for distant (but oh so close!) Rome, was the time of Jesus’ so-called Galilee Tour, though he had gone far beyond the Galilee. It was a time of great change and great upheavals, a time of miracles and strange affairs, of demons and storms.

Let us, then, turn momentarily away, and see Jesus.

He was handsome, with hair grown long and beard to match and eyes that shone and a Hebrew nose. Jesus not so young, but passionate; a desert man, surging out of the desert with his followers devout to smite a great empire. Not so likeable, perhaps, not now: the boyish charm is gone and in its place is a mystic, a rebel, a marshal of men. But not yet wanted. Not yet hunted. Free, as yet. And, once again, going on a journey.

‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,’ Jesus was saying. He was becoming more and more like that, speaking in riddles, not always making much sense.

One of his men approached him. He was agitated. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘suffer me first to go and bury my father.’

At that Jesus looked very stern, and he said, ‘Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.’ And the man looked horrified, but complied.

It was not a long way from where I sat with the wise men. We were, in fact, there to see it happen, to watch–to watch over, if we must be exact–the young Jesus, the Tripitaka re-born. His men couldn’t see us. He, I have no doubt, could, but he ignored our presence in the shades above the docks. ‘You see?’ Zhū Bājiè, The Pig of the Eight Prohibitions as I had since learned his proper name was–said. ‘How he ignores us? How he shuns us?’

‘Pigsy, Pigsy,’ Sandy said awkwardly. Even more awkwardly he tried to pat the former Heavenly Marshall’s back. ‘Come. You are being emotional.’

‘He is the Tripitaka!’ Pigsy said. ‘He journeys across the path to nirvana but he must have us to keep him safe and out of trouble! Instead of which he goes hither and dither like a messianic desert warrior raising hell, forgetting who his friends are—‘ and the pig-like entity did a curious and embarrassing thing–he burst out crying.

‘Pigsy, Pigsy…’ Sandy said helplessly. I looked at Sūn Wùkōng and the Monkey King looked back at me. He shrugged. ‘It is the way of the Tripitaka. Each must seek enlightenment in his own way. We can only ever watch out for him from afar. But the Tripitaka must make his own choices and enter into peril whole-heartedly.’ He smiled, though there was little humour in it. ‘The way we do.’

On the docks below, Jesus and his Xao-lin followers were boarding a ship. Sails were being raised, and as they did they puffed in the wind like a cockerel putting out its chest.

‘There is going to be a storm,’ Sandy said.

‘Of course there is going to be a storm,’ Monkey said. ‘How else could he quell it?’

The ship pushed out to sea. We watched it go. And this, as I later pieced it out, is what happened:

There had been a great storm; a tempest. The waves rose as high as boulders and as strong and crashed against the ship. The wind buffeted the sails, threatened to rip them, and the ship rolled dangerously, and all aboard it rolled with it, and all their possessions, and many were–as could only be expected–sick.

Jesus was asleep in his cabin.

There was running around and falling and bumping into the narrow walls; water was threatening to breach the hull, and the air smelled thick of tar and ozone. Lighting crackled, too close, outside. The men, those who could still stand, made their way at last to Jesus’ door and banged upon it.

‘Jesus! Jesus!’

At last there came a reply. ‘What?’

‘Save us!’

‘The storm!’

‘Save us or we perish!’

Jesus rose from his bed. His hair, being long and all, was somewhat unkempt from sleep. Then he smiled, the smile rising like rumpled sheets being straightened; a smile that brought calm; a confident smile. ‘O ye of little faith,’ he said–or something to that effect–and followed his followers up to the deck.

The tempest raged. The storm threw waves like soldiers at the hull. Spherical lightning squatted over the mast. In the darkness of the storm the wind seemed to carry faces, demonic and strange, wafting over the men and laughing, horribly. Jesus held up his arms, no longer smiling, his face rebuking the storm.

‘Stop it,’ he said.

The wind howled defiance. ‘I mean it,’ Jesus said.

And the storm stopped. The wind receded. The waves quieted and retreated. And a great calm descended on the sea.

What power is that? Perhaps–and this is only a suspicion–the three companions kept an eye on him wherever he went despite his protestations. Perhaps–and this is mere speculation–Monkey, in a different shape, was following the ship and fought the demon of the storm and bested him. Perhaps Sandy, assuming the shape of water, fought the demons of the waves and quelled them, too. Perhaps. But the true Buddha needs no companions to make those of the Mara, of the illusion of the world, obey his will. And his men were seized with amazement and anyway were much relieved when the ship came to rest, at last, on the other side of the country of the Gergesenes.

Though not for long.

As they came onto the shore it was night with only half a moon to light the way. And in the distance were the Gergesenes’ tombs, which they build to last, and where their dead lie entombed and yet… and yet not always still.

The cry rose from the men of Xao-lin. Fear grasped them in its clasp and pressed and pressed and squeezed. For from the tombs there rose unquiet devils, riding dead and horrid corpses exceeding fierce, and blocked their way.

In the distance was a herd of pigs at pasture. The night air smelled fragrant and fresh, the breeze coming in from the sea. The horrid mummies lurched to a standstill. ‘Who are you to come and disturb our peace?’ they cried in awful voices.

‘I am Jesus, son of Joseph,’ the Tripitaka replied. ‘Go, return to your crypts before you raise my wrath.’

‘Don’t antagonise them,’ one of the disciples said and shivered, but he was silenced by the others.

The devils, those living-dead, laughed most horribly. ‘What are you going to do to stop us?’

For a moment there was stillness. Somewhere in the darkness, perhaps, a monkey-shaped shadow moved. Perhaps noticing it, perhaps not, but Jesus assumed the Stance of the Crouching Monkey. His hand reached forward fingers spread open. He beckoned the devils.

‘Come.’

The mummies charged. Jesus, quick as lightning and as bright, leaped into the air. He seemed to move in slow motion, while all around him was a blur. He lashed out, connected, landed, swept the legs from under one opponent, tore at another’s bandages. The air seemed to crackle with eldritch tension.

In the midst of battle the devils laughed again, the sound rising in unison, shattering peace and loosening men’s bladders. ‘If you have power, Tripitaka,’ they said, ‘or whatever you call yourself–‘ bodies connected in mid-air. Blows rained. Jesus leaped in a figure of eight and seemed to rise, rise, rise like an arrow of cloud. ‘Then put us into the herd of swine over there!’

Shadows of monkeys moved in the dark. Somewhere there was the flash of gold. A pig neighed, the sound most horrid.

There was a crackle of lightning. The air felt charged. And many voices cried as one–‘No! No! No…’ and faded away.

Down by the beach a herd of swine screamed as one running in blind panic and terror, ran along the sand and finally, horribly, straight into the water and drowned.

Silence settled again. The disciples, shaking still, looked up at Jesus, fear and admiration filling their eyes.

And from somewhere in the distance, a keening, angry, frightened voice screamed, again and again as if beset by devils itself–‘What, in God’s name, have you done to my pigs?’

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

And now Herod the tetrarch, who was in great favour with Tiberius, built a city of the same name with him, and called it Tiberias. He built it in the best part of Galilee [and] strangers came and inhabited this city.
Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

I set out from Rome with a caravan of spice merchants heading to the Mediterranean Sea. My heart was easy at departing Rome, for in truth the spirit of travel was upon me. I went alone, as I was to be little more than an observer, a mere reporter of events–though I had other, more secret instructions I was to carry out under certain circumstances which I preferred not to dwell upon.

It was spring when we set off, a time of the year most suited to my nature, and I rejoiced in it. The merchants I travelled with were wealthy enough, and we lived comfortably on the road. Bread and olives and tomatoes dried in the sun and straight wide roads and everywhere Imperial peace and prosperity. It was good to be a Roman citizen, I thought, though I was not one. On the coast I bid my merchants goodbye and took passage on a ship. The Mediterranean sparkled in the sun, and as we departed I saw in the distance some dolphins, and thought it a good omen.

I landed in Judea one spring day and the feeling that took me as I stepped off the ship was one of homecoming, and the smell of the land threatened to suffocate me for a moment, so rich and full of feeling it was.

The next step of my journey was undertaken on foot, and I travelled slowly, at leisure, staying frequently in busy inns, buying drinks liberally and generally getting the lay of the land. It was a far cry from my time as an industrious young soldier, going busily hither and dither on a horse!

Of rumours, as is natural, there was an abundance of riches. Of Roman taxation there was much grumbling. I learned of the man John, a baptiser in the river Jordan, who had been sent to prison at the command of Herod Tetrach, son of Herod the Great, my old king, and heard many fantastical stories of the Nazarene who was touring, so I learned, far and wide, ranging across the Galilee and its sea and over to other lands, to Syria and elsewhere, and he drove away the demons that take over people and bring sicknesses and ill-will, and performed many miracles, and taught his way, which I heard tell was called Xao-lin. And I greatly desired to meet with him, but bid my time.

And there were stories, too, of the three beings who I had met briefly once before; though there were less of these and clouded. But I learned that they resided now in Tiberias and determined to meet with them once more and learn for myself of their nature. But first I went to Nazareth.

Nazareth was pleasant and quiet, the sort of place I could imagine myself retiring to, growing grapes and sitting in the shade of a fig tree, and drinking rough local wine while grandchildren played in the yard. I did not know then, of course, that this was not to be, but I indulged in such fantasies for a while, idly, as I waited in the woman’s yard.

Her name was Miriam, and she was becoming stooped with age. I introduced myself as an old soldier of the last king; now something of an amateur historian. I asked whether she could help me with some stories; some anecdotes.

‘You have,’ she said without the slightest hesitation, ‘too obvious a mark of Rome on you, and it is clear to me–no, please don’t interrupt–that you wish to hear of my son. Very well. I have no objection to that.’ She smiled at me then. ‘As long as we understand where each other stands.’

I smiled and bowed my head. ‘I am here merely to listen,’ I said, ‘and to record. I truly am a historian.’

‘Oh, I know who you are, Joseph son of Matthias,’ she said, surprising me. ‘My son has been expecting you and sent word of your arrival over a month ago.’

I tried to hide my reaction, but she could see I was startled. She nodded, as if acknowledging something we both shared. For a moment her eyes misted over. ‘I brought him up to be a good boy,’ she said.

‘I’m sure you did,’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘Too much interference.’ In her eyes I could see pain but also pride. ‘If you wish to learn of him,’ she said, ‘go to him, Josephus son of Matthias. He will tell you all you wish to know and more.’

It was thus that it was revealed to me, that neither my identity nor, it seemed, my mission were a secret to the man whom I had come to investigate. That, you may imagine, had made me uneasy, yet I was not willing to abandon my inquiry. Besides, I must confess I was curious.

Yet defiance stayed me for a while; and I did not make directly to Jesus’ camp, which was in any case roving all about, the man and his Xao-lin disciples. Instead I went to Tiberias.

I found the wise men easily–following the sound of fighting and drunken shouts I came to a taverna on the shores of the lake. Men were rushing in while others were flying through the air on their way out. The din was incredible. The sounds of breaking clay were everywhere. I eased my way in, dodging flying plates and jugs and men, and stopped short at the sight that greeted me.

In the middle of the taverna stood the three wise men, though they were much changed from the last time I saw them. For one, the mask of old age had slipped from them as easily as dirt in a wash–but it was more than that, for in their drunken anger their true nature was revealed, and it was no wonder the cry of ‘Devils! Devils!’ then rose in the air.

One had the body of a man and the face of a monkey. Another was like a pig in human clothes. And the third had a dreadful countenance, some elemental being from the depths of some cold dark river. ‘Devils? Devils?’ the pig one roared. ‘You are the foreign devils! Be gone and let a man drink in peace! Begone I tell you!’ and he sprang into the air, kicked and barrelled into two attacking men, sending them crashing to the wall.

‘You call this wine?’ said the monkey-faced one. ‘My piss tastes better than this!’ and he took on five men at once, all rushing him, and bested them in the time it took to utter his words.

I felt that intervening might be in order. I stepped closer to the melee. ‘Venerable gentlemen,’ I said, adopting again the way of address I had first used all those years before and then louder, ‘Venerable gentlemen!’

For a moment the three warriors paused. Even their attackers hesitated at my intrusion, no doubt curious as to who may be foolhardy enough to attempt discussion under the circumstances.

‘Who?’ I heard the pig one say. He turned an enormous head and two beady eyes regarded me blearily. ‘You the ma’nger o’ this place?’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Venerable one. I wish to talk. We are old acquaintances. Would you not lay down your arms?’

‘No’ ev’n used ‘em yet,’ the pig one said, but he looked uncertain. He turned his face to his companion and said, ‘Monkey?’

The monkey man regarded me thoughtfully, and the cheerfulness of battle left his face. ‘The boy soldier,’ he murmured, ‘now grown old. Jehosaphat, was it?’

‘Josephus,’ I said.

‘Quite,’ the monkey said. And then, ‘A messenger boy if ever I saw one.’ His dark monkey eyes didn’t leave my face. ‘And who’s errands are you running now, boy?’

I did not reply to that. Instead, I said, ‘Where is your charge? Or have you given up your purpose so easily?’

At that the pig man roared and would have charged me, were it not for the monkey staying holding him back.

‘Very well,’ the monkey said. ‘Let us adjourn to somewhere more private. Do you have wine?’

At that I smiled, for I still retained some skins from Rome with the finest drink that could be found in that grand place. ‘The very best,’ I said, ‘and money to buy more were it to run out.’

At that even the sour-faced water demon smiled. And so the three of them followed me out of that hall of devastation, and the men of Tiberias, wearing the hollow sunken looks of warriors after battle, watched us as we passed.

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.

Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take that trouble on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those such as are very different one from another.
Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

It is now time to depart, if only for a moment, from the events unfolding in the Galilee, and turn instead to my own involvement in the affair. The following period in the life of Jesus, he who was called The Christ, The Great Soul, The Buddha, is one of extensive travel and of what we may term adventure. It is a time of great interest to the keen historian, and we shall return to it momentarily.

But as to my own role. When I first met the wise men I was but a young soldier in the service of King Herod–and a more patriotic follower than I no king could wish for. Yet patriotic does not always mean that one is willing to die for one’s country. When I was twenty-six I undertook a journey to Rome, and ever since I felt my life hanging in the balance of two allegiances: for I was a Jew and faithful to my people, but I had also seen the world, and knew the Romans to be its rulers, if only for the time being.

Rome! You may have seen in the earlier parts of this narrative something of the wonder that was Egypt. But Egypt’s was the wonder of barbarism, of declining grandeur. Rome was its opposite. It was noble and mighty, but also young, vibrant, like a royal son on the cusp of becoming Caesar. I can not begin to describe to you the wide avenues, the markets carrying the fruits and produce of every country in the known world, the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity one could so easily find, the libraries and theatres and the bronzed ladies carried down the road… but I digress. I was in Rome again at the time of this telling, and had been residing in the eternal city for some time on an errand from Judea to the Caesar himself (with whom, it can be said, I had an understanding), and my life was, though of some pleasure to myself, on the whole uneventful.

That all changed with the arrival of the messenger from the east.

I was summoned to the palace one clear summer night. The stars shone over the black dome of the sky as if they had never seen a cloud. Everywhere was the smell of cooking foods carried on a summer breeze, and the streets were full of citizens sitting outside enjoying the balmy weather.

It goes without saying that the Caesar was a commanding man. I was ushered through untold corridors into his office, a humble affair one would not think to associate with a ruler of the known world. When I came in he was upright pacing the room. He motioned for me to sit down. There were no servants in the room. We were alone. Caesar himself fetched me a goblet of wine.

‘Josephus,’ he said. He had very dark, intense eyes, and they fastened on to me now. ‘What do you know of a man called Yeshua Ben Yosef, a Nazarene?’

At that I was taken aback. I had heard many stories of this man, Jesus as the Romans called him, through the large and active networks of Jewish merchants and travellers, and it was some time before that I associated the arrival of those strange wise men from the east whom I had met with the birth of a boy in Bethlehem. I said, carefully, ‘I believe he is a preacher. One of many, of course, but a successful one.’

‘And what, Josephus,’ Caesar said, still pacing, and I could not help but wonder why he seemed so agitated, for Judea had always been full of preachers and prophets, but that should hardly matter to a Caesar, ‘what does this man preach?’

At that I shrugged, though I was uneasy. ‘I imagine it is the usual,’ I said with more confidence than I felt. ‘The country is rife with seditionists and desert men.’

Caesar smiled; though without humour. ‘Desert men,’ he said. ‘Yes. I had heard this Jesus did come through the desert and more than once. A potent symbol for your people, is it not?’

I acknowledged that it might be, but said, ‘Surely you do not find him a threat, Caesar? Is he not like a grain of sand on a wide and endless beach?’

At that Caesar glanced sharply at me. ‘I would have thought the same,’ he said, ‘I would hardly concern myself, nor raise you to my side, on the account of one insignificant–what did you call him–seditionist.’

I merely bowed my head acknowledging the truth he spoke.

Caesar nodded. ‘A man arrived in Rome yesterday evening. A strange man, such as was not seen in these parts for many years, with eyes the shape of almonds and of stature short though powerfully-built, and speaking a foreign tongue none in the Empire can understand.’

‘Come from where?’ I asked, though an idea was already forming in my head.

‘From the east,’ he said. ‘An ambassador from a place he calls the Middle Kingdom. Though his language is exceedingly strange, he speaks a passable Greek. And his errand concerns this man Yeshua.’

I had never heard of a middle kingdom, and said so. ‘Beyond the known world?’ I said. ‘Surely…’

‘Surely nothing,’ Caesar said. He turned and glared at me. ‘The man is already dead. I had heard rumours of the wealth of the east, and rest assured Rome will one day move against it. But for now it must be kept silent.’

I swallowed hard thinking of the poor emissary. ‘Of course,’ I said.

Caesar smiled. ‘What do you know of three wise men who may have come to Judea from the east, some thirty years ago?’

He saw in my face that I knew something, and he laughed then. ‘Come, Josephus!’ he cried and clapped me on the back. He went to his cabinet and poured himself a goblet of wine. ‘I knew you were the man! Tell me of your wise men.’

‘Well,’ I said cautiously and knew that I must tread carefully, ‘I am not sure they were entirely men, nor were they entirely wise…’

And I told him the little that I knew.

When I had finished Caesar sat down for a long moment. Then he raised his head, and looked at me, and smiled. ‘This is probably nothing,’ he said. ‘A plot amidst plots. Perhaps merely a diversion to draw my attention elsewhere. It matters not. You have been in Rome for some time now, Josephus. Is it not time for you to return to your home, if only for a while?’

I understood Caesar at that moment; and knew he was not asking a question but giving an instruction I was obliged to follow. And in truth I was glad, for I had a desire to return to that land of which writing can only ever reflect a partial truth. But there was more: I could feel the wings of history fluttering in that room, as fragile and enchanting as a butterfly’s; and in that moment the desire arose in me to follow it and see where it would land.

‘It would be my pleasure and my honour, Caesar,’ I said, and he laughed; and so I became his agent; and was despatched to return to Judea.

Order Dark Faith (Editor’s note: Lavie earns $7.98 from each sale made through this link, and the money will be paid out to him daily)

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LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God (forthcoming), and, with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009). He’s lived on three continents and one island nation and currently lives in Southeast Asia. His first novel, The Bookman, will be published by HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint in 2010.