Read Online Immortal by Glenn Beck - Free Book Online

a guard of any size— our mission is not a political one, and the less warlike we seem, the easier it will be to pass borders. Are you in agreement, Melchior?”
    â€œCertainly, if these two men are willing to fight.”
    Agios nodded but held his tongue.
    Melchior looked at him silently and then asked, “What gods do you worship, Agios?”
    â€œNone,” Agios confessed.
    Looking surprised, Melchior asked, “None at all? Are you a complete unbeliever?”
    Agios told him, “My people have no gods, though we believe that everything has a spirit of its own. But as for worship, no, I have no god to pray to. If I have faith in anything, sir, it’s in spirit and in life. I can’t believe in gods. It’s hard enough for me to believe in people.”
    Caspar smiled. “Though our friend is not a man without any beliefs, or without any sense of spirit.”
    â€œI wonder more than believe,” Agios corrected.
    Melchior asked, “But how do you feel if others believe?”
    With a shrug, Agios said, “So long as it harms no one, let each believe as he wishes.”
    â€œWell, well,” Melchior said, his voice thoughtful. “Perhaps you may find more to believe in by and by.” He rang a bell, and a servant came to the library doorway.
    â€œThese men are tired after a long ride,” Melchior told him. “See that they have baths and fresh clothing and a good meal.”
    Agios explained Krampus’s special needs—the big man would never sleep inside a building or tent, but insisted on being in the open, or at least in a place where he could see the sky—and the servants found a room for Agios with a balcony outside. Krampus indicated that he would be content to sleep there, out in the air. They bathed and donned fresh clothing provided by Melchior, and later they ate together. The two scholars dined elsewhere. Krampus obviously relished the food—roast peafowl and goat’s meat—and when they had finished, he spread his arms, as if to take in the entire place, perhaps the entire kingdom. “Good,” he said. For him it was quite a speech.
    That night as Agios readied himself for bed, a servant came to the room. “Melchior commands your presence,” the servant said. Agios checked on Krampus, who had fallen into a sound sleep, and he followed the servant to a tower built into a corner of the city wall—a tower far too tall to be a defensive post.
    The servant said, “He awaits you at the top.”
    A spiral stairway of many hundred steps led up and up. Agios climbed steadily, though his thighs began to ache just past the midway point. The stair ended on a flat, roofless platform. Agios stepped out into the night. A sky like black velvet stretched overhead, sprinkled with stars looking unusually bright, for the moon had not risen.
    â€œCome here,” Melchior said. He was a silhouette in the darkness.
    Agios felt the fresh breeze of the mountains. In the faint starlight he could tell only that Melchior stood alone. With some caution Agios walked across the platform to stand near him.
    â€œCaspar just left me. He suggested I show you a few things. This way is north,” Melchior said, taking Agios’s upper arm and turning him so he looked out over the low parapet. “Do you know the stars?”
    â€œI know some have names for them,” Agios said. “The Babylonians call one Ishtar. My own people didn’t name the stars, but I can tell my way from them.” He looked up. “There is the North Star, for example. It is always in the night sky and shows a true direction.”
    â€œLook straight ahead, and to the west, and a third of the way up from the horizon. Do you see that star, the brightest one?”
    He couldn’t have missed it: a star as bright as the Morning Star or Evening Star, nearly as bright as a beacon, brighter than the last time he had caught sight of it. It