To Reign in Hell: A Novel

by Steven Brust

  He looked closer, trying to understand what was happening; he didn’t want to make a mistake. He studied the matter closely and realized that, if he was right, he couldn’t waste any time.

  Glad for the chance to help a friend without coming any closer to that, he moved.

  It was mesmerizing, in a way. They had circled closer and closer until now they were well within spear range, and she had done nothing to them.

  She became aware of it and decided that she would attack and hope to get one or two of them, at least. Or, she decided, perhaps she would throw the spear at Zaphkiel.

  No, she might miss, and then she’d have nothing for her trouble. She took a deep breath and—

  The three of them directly in front of her vanished in a burst of flame from above. Her reflexes acted for her, and she dived forward, rolling, just missing a stroke from a Throne who was behind her.

  She looked up and saw Belial turn for another sweep.

  “Scatter,” said Zaphkiel with complete coolness. “Reform forty paces to the right of Yeshuah.” He turned and ran, the others doing the same, but none of them coming near her.

  Belial landed carefully behind her. Lilith quickly looked around and saw the line beginning to bend under the assault led by Nisroc.

  She approached Belial and climbed onto his neck. “Thank you, true friend; I can’t say how grateful I am. But if you’d do more for me, take us up and I’ll show you where to burn.”

  “Belial . . . help,” was the reply, and they were airborne.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Ariel. Do you have a few minutes?”

  Abdiel didn’t answer. He looked around, as if hoping to see some kind of weapon in the pit with him. Mephistopheles waited, then stepped forward and landed in the pit, his knees bending. Abdiel could see him working to hold himself together against the flux that issued from the weakened floor beneath their feet.

  “If now isn’t convenient,” Mephistopheles continued, “I can wait. It isn’t urgent. I’ve been waiting a long time anyway. I can wait more.”

  As he spoke, he moved closer to Abdiel, and his hands began to reach out for Abdiel’s throat.

  “Just let me know what a good time to talk is, Abdiel. We’ll set up an appointment. We can—”

  “It was an accident!”

  “Yes, I know. You were going for Beelzebub, weren’t you?”

  “I only wanted to hurt him to make him chase me. I wasn’t trying to kill him!”

  “I understand that. That is why I’m not angry with you. Really. Trust me, Abdiel. As Yaweh and Gabriel trusted you. As the messenger to Michael trusted you. Trust me—”

  “Please!”

  The dark angel’s hands found Abdiel’s throat, and cut off anything else Abdiel had to say.

  Abdiel, who always had a plan, always had a scheme, always knew how to do or say the thing that would make everything work for him, felt empty as the fingers closed.

  Helplessness, frustration, and bitterness—and then a growing veil of blackness that came down from above as if to cover all traces of what he was. There was a final, searing burst of pain from his chest, and then the blackness was complete.

  Mephistopheles watched as Abdiel’s body dissolved. Then he climbed out of the pit, dusted himself off, and walked back toward the shore to see if matters were completed there, as well.

  Harut opened his eyes.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. He looked at the blue above him, and at the ground beside him. He looked at his hands, and his arms, and—

  “Raphael!”

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “Over there!”

  “I don’t—oh. Harut, I must—”

  “I understand, Raphael. I’ll stay here and look at things.”

  “Fare well, Harut.”

  “So long, Raphael.”

  Yaweh looked into the empty pit and felt the emanations from it. So that was what Abdiel had been doing! Yaweh decided that he had no quarrel with Mephistopheles for taking the execution on himself— Abdiel had had to be stopped.

  He checked the damage carefully and decided that, bad as it was, it could wait until after the war was resolved. He concentrated briefly on the battle, and the scene unfolded itself before him.

  Yeshuah, wounded, was being helped by Gabriel and a Seraph, both of whom were also wounded, as they backed away from the conflict. Michael, also wounded, was crawling as best he could. Nisroc was keeping control of the retreat, trying to make it orderly.

  Lucifer stood stock still, dealing out death as casually as he had discoursed on light sources and plant growth. Satan was moving all across the lines, directing the advance and shouting encouragement.

  Belial had cut off their retreat; whether by chance or design could not be determined. His burnings, however, had also blasted the sides of the other path, widening it, and the retreating hosts were taking that. That would bring them. . . .

  He looked up and saw, with ordinary eyesight, angels begin to run toward him. He waited patiently. When they began to get close, he held his sceptre aloft and sent a thunderclap into the air.

  The angels, who were now within a league, saw the lone figure, then saw the gold cloak on his shoulders. They began running toward him.

  As they came, he motioned them to stand behind him, well clear of the pit, so he could watch the developing battle.

  The last of them emerged, the healthy helping to bear the wounded. And behind them came another figure wearing the gold of the Firstborn. They took up lines a full league away near the mouth of what had been a path through a small gorge and was now a valley strewn with rubble.

  Yaweh identified Satan, with Beelzebub next to him. Lucifer stood to the side. Overhead, Belial turned in great circles. The angels behind Satan stood tall and grim.

  Yaweh looked behind him. Michael lay on the ground moaning. Yeshuah still clutched his side. Raphael was nowhere to be seen. The eyes of the angels reflected only fear, hopelessness, and exhaustion.

  Yaweh swallowed hard. After all of this, he had lost. Completely. Finally.

  What to do now? Go to him and surrender? It wouldn’t be easy, but it would save lives. Could he lead a counterattack? No, too late. What else? Nothing.

  After all the murder, destruction, and hatred, there wasn’t going to be anything to show for it. The cacoastrum would still come past in Waves and take the lives of thousands of angels. Their safe, secure haven from the flux would be a place of war and death, from within and without. It would—

  “No!” he shouted to the skies. “I won’t allow it to be! It will not happen that way! It will not!”

  Then he looked down into the pit and suddenly knew what he must do. He remembered telling them, ages ago, it seemed, that when he ended, Heaven would end. Now he would prove it. As he had started it, so, now that it was hopelessly marred, he would end it. With a feeling of sorrow, perhaps not unmingled with pride and a sense of ultimate triumph, Yaweh stepped forward into the pit to complete Abdiel’s work.

  “To the Palace, my friend,” said Satan. “This time we take it.”

  “Verily, milord,” said Beelzebub. “And with an whole mind, me-thinks.”

  Satan’s brow furrowed. “You know,” he said, glancing behind him at the thousands of angels who followed, “It isn’t as if Yaweh was wrong.”

  “Milord?”

  “In essence, he was right. If a leader can’t lead, can’t make decisions to protect the group he’s leading, he isn’t a leader. If only he’d— What’s that?”

  They stopped. Approaching them was an army—yet not an army of angels; an army of colors, of patternless shapes and shapeless patterns exploding from an epicenter before the lines of the opposing hosts.

  “That, milord,” quoth Beelzebub, “is a poor loser.”

  Once more she rode the winds. Lilith had long since forgotten the charging/retreating/winning/losing forms of the angels below her and existed with and upon the breezes, with and upon Belial.

  The e
ssence of sundering met the essence of unity, and transformation occurred, as it always does. The oneness of Belial/Lilith became the disjunction of a falling Lilith and a screaming, raging Belial.

  The Fourth Wave, she thought in wonder, as the ground rushed up at her. It came much too fast, of course, for the hand of cacoastrum, the ultimate prestidigitator, is quicker even than the eye of the Firstborn.

  Cacoastrum exploded around him, and for a brief moment, it was almost peaceful. Here was the old enemy again. Here was the enemy he could hate. It was right that it should claim him again—he had cheated it for a long, long time. Now let it—he realized that he was fighting it.

  No, that wasn’t what he wanted. He tried to make himself stop, but he couldn’t. Yaweh had been created out of the flux with the need to fight it—and fight it he would—it went beyond desire or will.

  He howled with rage. Above him, the archangels recognized what was occurring and prepared to defend themselves as they had before.

  Yeshuah felt gentle hands upon him, and his strength returned. He opened his eyes, realizing that they’d been closed, and saw Raphael above him, looking worried and harried.

  “What happened, Raphael?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like another Wave, only different—smaller. I don’t understand it. It seems to be coming from that pit. When it started, it was hardly longer than your height.”

  “What about the battle?”

  “You were losing. It’s lucky for you the Wave started when it did; your army was in a panic.”

  “Was? What’s happening now?”

  “Everyone is dealing with the Wave, of course. There. You’re fixed. I owed you that much for—never mind. I have to go now.”

  She did. Yeshuah got to his feet and looked around. He suddenly understood why they called it a Wave. From in front of him there was a spreading of colors that were not of Heaven, and a jumble of shapes, a swirling filigree of conception that left nothing in its wake but itself.

  He looked more closely and saw Yaweh standing somewhat back from the edge of flux the angels were struggling to contain. He saw Michael standing. And through the flux itself, he could make out more angels, fighting the flux—and, very faintly, he thought he could see a gold cloak.

  He realized then that all of the angels on the west and south sides of the emanation were of Satan’s army, and those on the east and north were of Yaweh’s. Further, those who were not directly involved, as not all of the angels had room to confront the Wave, were divided similarly.

  This, of course, was too good a chance to pass up.

  Michael, somewhat healed by Raphael, came limping up to Yeshuah.

  “Don’t do it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You are about to have our host attack Satan while they fight the flux. Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. First, because you will be hated forever in Heaven if you do. Second, because I’ll destroy you if you try.”

  Yeshuah smiled. “As to the second, you can’t. You have no idea of the kind of power I have, created as I was. You couldn’t do it, my father couldn’t—”

  “Lilith nearly did the job.”

  Yeshuah shrugged. “I have no intention of letting you get close enough to use physical means, which is the mistake I made then. As to the first point you raised, do you really think so?”

  Michael looked surprised, for Yeshuah seemed actually to be considering it. “Yes, I do,” he said. “They are working in defense of Heaven itself. If you use that opportunity to attack, you’ll be despised wherever you go.”

  Yeshuah looked thoughtful. Then he nodded, as if to himself. “Come with me,” he said. He walked past the waiting lines of angels and came out in front of them.

  Then he began to lift his arms as if to signal an attack. Michael made a growling noise and brought his sword sweeping down at Yeshuah—who, expecting it, stepped nimbly to the side.

  The sword struck the ground.

  Michael was hurled into the air by the explosion, back toward the line of angels. Yeshuah, however, had braced himself for the shock. When it came, he fixed all his concentration on the spot where the sword had struck. He took one last breath, and briefly wished that he had time for a fast look at Heaven. Then he threw himself at the eruption.

  The cacoastrum flowing from the explosion seized him and began ripping into him. Before it could complete its work, however, Yeshuah had a moment—an immeasurably small instant of time in which to work. Using all the skill he had taken from the minds of those who created him, he directed the cacoastrum where he wished it to go.

  He had the fleeting sensation that it had worked; then the flux tore into him, and he was no more.

  A great crack appeared in the floor of Heaven. The flux fed back along this weakness quicker than any angel could see it. In the drawing of a breath, the crack had spread in both directions across the floor on which the sea rested until it came to the far wall. There, halfway up, the cracks came together, and the cacoastrum found the weakness even as it appeared.

  With a trembling that knocked every angel off his feet, a great, massive block of Heaven’s floor and part of the distant western wall split off.

  In the drawing of another breath, the flux had found it, open on five of six sides, and these had broken down into nothing.

  Belial was beyond panic. His fear had transformed itself into rage, and the cacoastrum fell back wherever he found it. He sought out the flux and destroyed it, mindlessly, unaware of its source or its cause.

  In his blindness, he felt that it was because of what he was doing that he was able to search it out, rather than be surrounded by it. He was, therefore, not very surprised when suddenly he was surrounded by it. Then he began to twist, turn, dive, and spin, merely to keep himself alive. He had no understanding of the significance of this, but he had no need to understand either.

  It was almost more than he could stand. The death of Yeshuah had been to Yaweh as if a part of him had been forcibly ripped out. And now, seeing the huge hole in the wall of Heaven, it was as if another part of him had been taken. He felt his knees giving way, and his face struck the ground.

  At that moment, he felt two pairs of hands on him. One pair was warm and gentle, the other hard and strong.

  “Yaweh,” said Raphael. “There is nothing you can do to help him, but there is much that can be done for Heaven, and you must do it.”

  “Leave me alone,” he whispered.

  “The Plan, Yaweh,” said Michael. “You must do it, now, or his death—everything—will have been for nothing.”

  “Please,” said Raphael. Her hands began to massage his shoulders. The star at her side glowed, and Yaweh felt a strange peace come over him. “Please,” she repeated.

  He got to his knees. With Michael’s assistance, he rose to his feet then. He reached into his robes and drew out the papers on which the details of the Plan were inscribed.

  He looked out at the angels of the Third Wave fighting and dying to hold back the Wave. He saw that there were still many who were doing nothing but waiting for others to fall, to take their turn.

  He looked back at the papers, then at Michael, then at Raphael.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Michael, here is what you must do. . . .”

  Leviathan was frustrated at being out of the battle, except for that small part near the beginning, but pleased that it was going so well. She craned her neck to get a better view and occasionally got glimpses of this or that portion.

  When the influx began, she was aware of it at once. This was confirmed by the sight of Belial flying around and attacking it. She wondered why it was so well confined to the inside of Heaven.

  “It won’t stay that way,” she decided. Therefore she, too, was unsurprised to find herself surrounded by the flux and fighting for her life once more.

  Harut felt the effects more keenly than any angel save Belial. While he had been blind, the flux had given him perceptions
that other angels lacked. Some of them remained.

  He knew what had happened. As he sat on the safe side of the break, he waited for the Wave to find him. And as he waited, he saw what Michael and Yeshuah did. He became aware of the beginnings of the Plan, of the angels thrown out into the flux to create a safe area to work in and of those going out to begin the work.

  Heaven, he realized, was shrinking. In order for the Plan to function, most of Heaven had to be given back to the cacoastrum from which it had sprung—there simply were not enough angels to defend it.

  He sighed as he thought of the forests of Lucifer, and the shore by the sea where he had visited with Leviathan.

  He noticed that the cliff on which he was sitting was soon to be abandoned by those who were defending against the Wave. He thought over the possibilities of retreating to safety and of staying behind. He thought over who was remaining in Heaven, and who had fallen from it.

  Then he pitched himself forward into the chasm.

  Asmodai saw Lilith fall to the ground near him as he, himself, fell. Then he saw the ground breaking apart around him. Quickly he engulfed both of them in a web of safety that would keep the flux out— for a little while.

  Then, hoping it would be enough, he began to build walls. He discovered, to his surprise, that he was enjoying it.

  Lucifer had been rallying angels against the flux when it hit, and he was thrown to the ground. Then the ground fell apart and he cried Lilith’s name.

  Once more he was battling the cacoastrum. He spun and fought, his wand flashing and cutting. He became aware of Asmodai, Belial, and Leviathan, and began helping them.

  Three times they erected a wall with two sides, and three times it was torn apart before the third could be added. The fourth time it stayed.