Elijah, having lost the cross on which the Messiah had once been crucified, now held the amber. He no longer felt the need to convince anyone, he knew. He listened, then, to mankind, divided. Those still awaiting the Messiah, and those who no longer believed. Elijah sat on a bench after walking for a long time through Ravenna, and before him stood the Basilica of San Vitale. He no longer asked anything of God. God would no longer speak anyway. He had already told Elijah one last time all that Elijah knew. The cross had been left in Jerusalem. He gazed into the polished amber, a gift from the divine, and he knew: the Messiah would indeed return. He had already returned. Elijah knew it. He carried the fullness of the divine within himself. He knew that he could speak now. If he spoke to the people, he would indeed be offered that throne promised in Jerusalem. But Elijah knew he was Jerusalem, and had no need to sit on a throne for others to see it. He now waited, his fist clenched around the amber, hidden from the eyes of men. And then he understood:
He was not the only one. He was not the only chosen. God had not yet told the whole truth. But He had certainly not lied. He was chosen, yes, but God had chosen a second. The second chosen one held, at that very moment in his left hand, another stone God had brought him: the black onyx. Elijah now had only to wait, to await the return of the Messiah. One day, the black onyx was revealed to the people. The Messiah had returned. He had committed the final sin of humanity: to open the closed hand and reveal the divine too soon. Men now saw only the black onyx. And the world turned dark. Wars broke out again, as did the heavens. Men fought because the Messiah had sat on the throne of Jerusalem. The heavens wept because the Messiah was pure. The stone he had shown the world was only truth. The black onyx, lit by the heavens, had revealed to men all their sins. At that moment, it was no longer God who judged them, it was they who judged themselves. Men, drunk with power, fought to sit upon the throne the Messiah had unveiled. To steal the stone of humanity. All who were impure, all who desired that stone, perished in the wars that followed. But the Messiah was crucified once more. Not on the cross, which had already vanished from Jerusalem, But for that dark stone.
Whoever held it proclaimed themselves Messiah. And they were right, in a way they did see the truth. But Elijah still held the amber in his right hand, hidden from men's eyes. Elijah saw the sins of the world materialize yet they were not his. He had not lied to God. He had kept the truth to the end, as he had been taught. And once the final lie of humanity had been unveiled, Elijah opened his eyes. He saw the Messiah crucified again. He saw the throne shattered. The black onyx stone, broken. He opened his right hand before the people. It was empty. Seeing Elijah held no weapons, no truth that endured, The people chose to crucify the second chosen one. Time seemed to slow. The calm before the storm had taken shape. The dark and the light had finally met. Elijah knew it was too late. God, in His infinite power, froze time, and spoke once more ;
Tell me, now without lying, did you take the throne?
Elijah no longer wished to speak to God. He did not answer. From his deepest rage, he had seen that God had betrayed him. That the question no longer held meaning, For darkness had already won. He told himself it was too late. That God had sacrificed both His chosen. That God was, in truth, the Devil.
And Elijah felt the catharsis of the infinite, of the cosmos, of the heavens, of the gods, of those who had fallen, of tears, of ruins, of every painting, every church, every cross recalling the crucifixion he was now to endure. He cried out before God the truth of the world, the truth of the past, the eternal truth of time. He had told the truth to God.
And God, in His final lesson, gave Elijah the most beautiful gift: the tears of Apollo those made of amber. These tears shone through all who bore witness and remembered.
Elijah then fulfilled his prophecy. He had let men crucify the divine one last time, so that he might see the treasure of the earth. the tears of Apollo. And as those tears touched the soil of the earth, the wings of Icarus that Elijah bore became filled with this truth. No longer made of wax, they were now amber. Elijah smiled one last time at humanity, and took flight on his new wings into the peace God had created, into the light that now reigned, into the lies that vanished forever in the void of the existence of those who had believed in them, and those who had seen Elijah, those who had placed their faith in the divine, had seen it in Elijah's amber. Elijah flew to the heavens to a sun that no longer burned, that had reconciled with the moon. And all who had witnessed Elijah rose with him
forever, into the kingdom of heaven