Free Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) by Kathleen O’Neal

Middoth.”
    “You made mistakes with everyone! They’re all dead! Everyone you’ve ever used—”
    “Yes, I’ve made mistakes. The major one being that I should have given Middoth a Mea, so he could challenge God himself. That’s why I gave you one. Don’t you see? I’ve tried very hard not to make any mistakes with you.”
    She reached up to touch the dull gray ball that hung from the golden chain around her neck. When Adom had first given her the Mea, it had glowed with such glaring blue light, it had been hard to look at directly. “But… Adom gave it to me.”
    Aktariel shook his head. “No. I just didn’t want him to tell you where it came from. I was afraid it might hinder your use of the device. And I wanted you to know the truth firsthand.”
    Anger and confusion swelled to suffocate her. “How many dupes in the past believed that only to discover on their deathbeds that you’d toyed with them as cruelly as a cat does with a mouse before the kill?” Gauging the distance to the exit, she vacillated. Outside, starlight plated the ice cliffs in silver. Wind howled, throwing snow like sparkling lances at the dark heavens. “Middoth wrote that you’d stolen all the Meas. That you’d—”
    “True. I did.”
    She inhaled sharply. He sounded so calm, so chillingly matter-of-fact, as though confessing to a cold-blooded murder that he only vaguely remembered committing. “If you’re so anxious to have people face God themselves, why not spread them around?”
    “Because …” He clenched his fists tightly, as if to control an emotional outburst. “Rachel, most people in the past who’ve used the Mea have been weak, simple fools, easily influenced. When they went to talk to God, He had no trouble bending them to His will. Believers when they left, they were fanatics when they returned.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his blue cloak and eyed her askance. “I had to counteract His propaganda. And … I had other reasons.”
    “Then why did you give me one?”
    “I bet everything on the hope that when you faced Him you’d be angry and desperate enough to ask the right questions. And you did. That’s why He locked the gate to you. The Mea you’re wearing is dead. That’s why it doesn’t glow anymore.”
    In a gentle loverlike gesture, he opened his glowing arms, reaching out to her. Against the shimmering background of ice, he seemed a magnificent angelic sculpture of gleaming gold. She backed farther away, edging for the cave entrance.
    “Rachel, listen to me. There are some things I cannot do. You think of me as being like God, but I’m not. Chaos has clear, distinct patterns. I can’t—”
    “They why can’t you predict and change them?”
    “Because I wasn’t standing there when Epagael established the initial conditions of this universe—though Lord knows I should have been. Unless one knows those conditions, one can never truly predict chaotic turbulence. Patterns that were set in motion eons ago are too strong for me to alter—except in minor ways. Occasionally, I can add an element of nonlinearity and reshape certain parameters. And I can set new ones in motion. But Adom’s path had been determined long ago.” Forlornly, he murmured, “Just as Moshe’s had and Yeshwah’s and Sinlayzan’s. Though I tried to help them, too. But they’d been forsaken by God before I descended into the void.”
    Angrily, she accused, “So all the Old Stories are wrong? You’re really a saint?”
    He shook both fists futilely. “No, not a saint. A prisoner! A tool, just as you are! We are all pawns in Epagael’s cruel game. But if you’ll help me, if you’ll only—”
    He took three quick steps toward her and she screamed, “No! I just want to go home and live with my daughter in peace. Leave me alone!”
    Aktariel’s blue cloak waffled in the wind penetrating the cave entrance. “Rachel, please, we must discuss Tikkun and Jeremiel. What happens on Tikkun will determine