Now they stood between me and my son.
I wanted to punish them. I wanted to destroy them. I hated them.
My eyes welled with tears as I felt myself slipping even further, knowing I could never redeem myself, uncertain if I even cared.
“Mother, I will not seek forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”
Raw power surged through me but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
I tore my gaze from the fallen, already more than halfway across the dried seabed charging towards us. I focused instead on the bleak landscape, the destruction of this sphere, of the land itself. It looked dead, but that was a false perception.
I closed my eyes stretching forth my intuition. Prana surged beneath the surface of this dying husk. The very rock, each particle of sand, the heated air-it all lived, as did everything else created by God because creation resided within God Himself. Creation is God’s causal, astral, and physical bodies.
My body possessed an intelligence to beat my heart, breathe air, digest food, feel, thrive, and grow through no skill or will of my own. Imagine God’s body possessing an infinite intelligence to do likewise.
God is Spirit first, hence this land I stared upon, this particular body of God, was born of Spirit and possessed a Soul. Although it was a collective Soul, intimately tied to any and all who dwelled on, above, and within the land. As whole, we gave a name to this landscape, this intelligence, this beautiful collective Soul – we called Her Nature.
If I stilled my thoughts, I could communicate with Nature and feel Her love for all things, the harmony, the oneness that makes it so very special.
I did so in that moment. And felt Her pain.
She lay injured, Her skin scorched and feverish, Her body wounded and riddled with disease. The fallen who had done this to Her had cast Her aside to die as if She were a wingless that could no longer pull a cart. But She bore no ill will to those who did this to Her and suffered in silence, unable to give voice to Her torment. A deep sadness swept through me followed immediately by an awful rage.
This injustice must not go unpunished! I cried silently. Those responsible must be held accountable! The fallen caused all of this and they must be stopped lest their plague of destruction and death continue unchecked. Do not let them spread their suffering to other spheres. Do not let it end like you. Do not allow them to continue!
Let me be your voice! I pleaded. Lend me your strength. Let me be your vessel to clear away this abomination from your bosom!
The answer came instantly. Yes.
Nature’s prana merged with mine. Waves upon waves of energy crashed within me, flooding me. I could not contain it all. Just when I thought my body would burst, it expanded.
My body was no longer my small form but the very land itself.
My heart beat, a fiery, seething mass of magma pumping at the core of this world. My ancient arms, the mountains, upheld the sky. I inhaled and exhaled the mighty winds sweeping back and forth across the arid plains. My skin, cracked and broken, stretched tight over my burning body. I peered with my newfound eyes, the twin suns hovering in the sky, and saw every living thing as a part of me. It was then that I noticed the fallen had almost crossed the dried wasteland
With a mighty effort, I shifted my consciousness back to the small, frail form of myself. I opened my eyes. The vast army of fallen were mere moments away.
“Sariel, if you’re planning anything, now is the time!” cried Vvael.
Nature and I were one. I raised my hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Get behind me!” I cried to my companions. They fell back. The wall of fallen loomed tall and sheer like a dark cliff.
I reared my arm back as if to throw a javelin, feeling Nature’s power respond, then hurled it forward.
A gust of wind speared from my hand. It swelled as it sped forward rapidly rotating in a vortex, twisting faster and faster, growing larger and spiraling forward. It sucked the first of the fallen into its grip. The fallen whipped around in jerked and broken motions, their screams drowned out as wings ripped off, heads and limbs snapping forward and backward like shaken dolls. More fallen swept into the cone of wind, their spinning bodies, torn and shredded, adding to the swirling chaos, giving it substance.
The funnel swelled into a tornado.
It tore into the mass of fallen like a living, breathing thing. The fallen tried to veer away from it to no avail. It punched through them, ripping and tearing, leaving gaping holes in its wake. It continued on, unstoppable. The more fallen it sucked in the more dangerous it became. It moved haphazardly, slithering and erratic like a snake after its prey.
But the endless army still came. I pulled my arm back and hurled another tornado. It launched from my hand, whipping and spinning, a dark funnel of death cutting across the first tornado as if at play. Both reaped a swath of destruction in their wake.
A group of fallen had managed to avoid the swirling maelstroms and launched themselves at me. The leader, his bat like wings black with thick, ropey veins drew back a thick wooden spear, the iron tip barbed, and launched it with great force.
“Look out!” cried Dirael, starting forward to block it with his shield.
“Stay back!” I ordered. I swiftly drew my sword, raised it, and screamed my fury.
Lightning seared across the cloudless heavens like jagged scars. Thunderclaps rent the air. The first of the lightning shattered the thrown spear in a sizzling display. The second smashed into the group of fallen, tossing and scattering them. My companions reeled. I pointed my sword at another group of fallen.
More lightning split the sky, blasting into their ranks, exploding them outwards in every direction. Thunderclaps boomed around me.
Still the fallen came, banking and diving away from the wayward tornadoes, charging fast at me in clusters and waves. Sheathing my sword, I raised both hands and faced the sky.
Lightning rained from the heavens.
Crackling bolts shot downward again and again, the fallen scattering before the sheer fury of it. I called forth a score of them. Two score. Then hundreds.
An endless barrage of light and energy unleashed all around me. The sky lit up, a forest of jagged streaks and blinding flashes. Thunderclaps boomed, a relentless staccato of shattering explosions. The air sizzled. Heat washed over me as if I stood in a furnace. The sharp smell of charred meat and cooked hair suffused the air, the stench overpowering.
Just as quickly, it stopped. I lowered my arms slowly, my skin still tingling from the static in the air, my hair electrified.
A great silence fell. Next to the thunder, the silence was deafening. Not a sound could be heard. Great ragged gaps appeared in the fallen lines. Complete sections of the horde were missing as if melted away. Thousands had perished.
“God in heaven,” said Furmiel quietly.
* * *
“Look, they’re regrouping,” Dirael said.
The two twisters still wreaked havoc in the sky although weakened considerably. They moved forward and backward, changing direction, intertwining then coming apart. The fallen dove below the swirling cones, hovering not a hundred paces above the dried and cracked seabed. Their ranks swelled as they regrouped.
“Here they come again,” said Vvael.
The fallen surged forward, a gathering wave of growing momentum. Their cries for vengeance carried even beyond the din of the tornadoes.
I called forth my chariot, boarded, and flicked the reins. “Stay close,” I said as I soared upwards. My companions flew at my side.
I stopped several hundred feet above. Lowering my hands to my side, my fingers curled as if gripping a heavy weight, I lifted.
A low and deep rumble issued from the ridgeline far below us. It began to tremble.
Cracks split along the surface and widened into fissures. Rocks tumbled from their perch, sliding down the stony hill in great rolling crashes. The ground shook, the deep rumbles turning into an angry roar. Pockets of dirt and debris burst upwards. The sur
face bulged and rippled like great muscles just beneath the stony skin. The ridgeline rose as if it were a beast rousing itself after a deep slumber.
My trembling hands lifted chest high and, rotating my palms outward, I pushed.
The ridgeline jerked forward. Great sections of the stony surface split. Rock spilled and tumbled as it began to roll forward. It swelled as it moved, gathering rock and dirt and sand into itself. I willed the rising earth to act and to move as fluid as water, to cleanse away the fallen from my sight.
It grew into a massive tidal wave of stone and soil, churning and crashing, roaring as it surged forward.
The monstrous wave of dirt and stone swallowed any smaller hills before it, drawing it into itself, growing in ever greater height. It towered as it continued on relentlessly, a wall of earth three hundred feet tall and half a mile wide.
The fallen faltered before the fast approaching wave. Many broke off, attempting to fly above it only to be swept into the twisters protecting the skies. The remainder wheeled in mid-flight, retreating to the stronghold upon the mountain peak.
I willed the giant wave to greater speeds. It strengthened and drove onward, the momentum unstoppable. The top of the swells peaked and crested like whitecaps. Where the tornadoes touched the wave tops, spindrifts of earth and rock spun off in massive arcs.
Fallen raced desperately before it. Too slow. The wave top curled forward, a massive plummeting crest of stone. It crashed.
The wave broke over the fallen. It swept them away in a torrent of roiling and churning earth. Swirling eddies of rock and stone crashed upon the lone peak, depositing mountains of earth around it in violent upsurges. Moments later, the deluge slowed and finally abated.
The peak held but the stronghold shook. A section of the fortress wall sheared off and slid away.
The shockwave hit.
I hardened the air around me and my companions, shielding us all in a tight cocoon. It was scarcely enough.
My hair and wings blew backwards, the flames on my steeds extinguished. A storm of dirt, sand, and rock pelted against the barrier. For a moment I thought my shield wouldn’t hold. The shockwaves pounded against it in rolling waves, each one less severe than the one before it. Eventually it stopped.
The tornadoes were gone, shredded by the shockwaves. The skies surprisingly clear. The swirling maelstroms had removed most of the dust and debris before vanishing. Only a fine brown haze hung in the skies like ribbons of used gauze.
I released the cocoon and gazed upon the landscape. It had been remade.
Deep fissures raked the surface where the wave had passed. The lone peak beneath the fallen stronghold was lonely no more – a mountain range had formed around it. An occasional seizure still shook the ground.
I saw no sign of fallen. I saw no sign of any living thing.
I glanced behind me. My companions stared at the destruction, their faces pale. “Come,” I said. “Let us see to my son.”
* * *
I cracked the reins. My team of horses, aflame once more, moved forward.
I turned my attention to the stronghold. It was sitting slightly askew and several of the towers had toppled along with the one section of wall. I reached out with my feelings, focusing my attention on the life of the babe within. I felt him and my heart leapt.
As before, a strong presence tossed me out forcibly, a sharp pain tearing through my head. But it wasn’t as severe as last time. Whoever opposed me wasn’t as strong as before. I felt his outrage.
I smiled in satisfaction.
I started across the overturned seabed towards the fallen fortress. My companions flew silent alongside me.
We had flown a quarter of the way towards the fortress when Nafriel pointed to a dark spot high above the stronghold. “What’s that?” she asked.
I paused, peering upwards, shielding my eyes with my hands. The small dark smudge widened and appeared as if it swirled. It expanded quickly. Tendrils of the fine brown ash that hung in the air snaked skyward towards the swirling blackness. The whirlpool thickened and distended, purple and orange protrusions reached out of the swirling mass like groping tentacles. The outer edges shimmered with a scintillating light, and still it grew.
“It’s a portal,” I said softly.
The revolving mass fattened further, streaks of lightning dancing on its fringe. It continued to grow, hovering above the stronghold and taking up the sky like a giant gas nebula. It rotated slowly, giving off sprays of iridescent light.
Darkness poured from the nebula cloud as if its belly tore open and the contents spilled out. Fallen. Thousands upon thousands of them swarmed towards us.
“My God, is there no end to their number?” cried Vvael.
“There are more than before,” grunted Furmiel. “Not very nice of them.”
“I grow weary of this,” I said angrily. Must they keep coming? Must they keep trying to deprive me of my son? Who are these fallen that they can take and destroy and inflict without fear of retribution?
“No more!” I screamed. My anger bubbled into hot fury that coursed through my veins, my arteries, threatening to burst from my very skin.
I let it.
A terrible blast rocked the ground below. A geyser of magma erupted into the air near the foot of the stronghold, shooting skyward in a fountain of glowing red. It exploded through a mass of fallen, expelling them upwards. Instant flames erupted wherever the magma touched.
Another geyser of liquid rock shot upwards near the first. More fallen disintegrated. In the distance, the flaring bodies looked like nothing more than crackling sparkles.
Another lava fount erupted, then another. They gushed upwards, tens of them, a hundred, as if the ground showered the sky.
The fallen melted before the onslaught. Some rose higher but the heat of it was too powerful and they fell. Others dodged between gouts of flaming rock but the heat captured them like a net. The remaining fallen rose even higher in the sky where the heat was bearable.
The air reeked of brimstone, the stench sickening. Across the seabed, magma seeped into the deep fissures, filling them up, flowing like blood.
As before, I hardened a shield of air around us. It blocked the heat. I paused and gazed in disbelief at the landscape – it reminded me of the second sphere. Lava gushed and daylight dimmed from the hanging ash.
I did this. Nature bled and I inflicted the wounds. Was I now a destroyer of worlds like Lucifer?
Nature trusted me and in my blind rage I hurt Her. She gave me Her great strength and I could have healed. Instead, I destroyed. A great sadness swept over me.
I gazed down at the landscape. The destruction was total. My eyes welled at the sight of it. Tears fell.
The air hissed. Raindrops spattered against our shield. Another fell beside it. The rain increased and the geysers ceased.
The fallen descended from high above. So did the rain. It grew in intensity, coming down hard. It struck against the lava flows kicking up puffs of steam.
The rain turned into a downpour. The air hissed and steamed. The cocoon still protected us and I was glad for that. I could feel the heat of the steam and it hurt.
Steam flowed all around us. My visibility lessened until I could see nothing at all. I stood in a world of darkness. All around, I could hear the sounds of hissing as if I stood in a nest of vipers.
“Where are they?” asked Nafriel nervously.
I reached out with my senses just as a thump hit our cocoon. A fallen lay sprawled across our invisible dome, wings unfurled, his eyes open. His face was gray and wrinkled. He slid off our dome to fall below.
Another thump hit our dome as a second fallen bounced off. More thumps hit the ground below us. The thumping increased until a ceaseless pattering erupted as if it hailed.
“What’s happening?” Nafriel glanced around, her eyes wide and frightened.
“The fallen are dying,” said Dirael, amazed. “The steam boiled them.”
I reached out with my sens
es. There were very few fallen left. Most were dead or dying. I had not planned on the steam cleansing the sky of the fallen.
I leaned against the side of my chariot, my mood somber. When I tried to destroy the fallen, I hurt the land and I could not stop them. When I tried to heal the land, the fallen perished without my trying.
I shook my head in astonishment and sent a quiet thank you skyward. I vowed not to use Her powers to destroy ever again. It was unworthy of Her. As it was of me. I disconnected myself from Mother Nature with a silent appreciation and reverence.
The rains still poured. I raised my hand and a strong wind began to blow away the steam. Bodies littered the seabed. The falling rains gathered in swelling pools, running into fissures, and flowing in rivers across the uneven ground.
The nebula portal still hovered above the fallen fortress. No more fallen came through. I released the cocoon shielding us.
“Let us hurry.” I flicked my reins, the team surged forward through the driving rain. We raced towards the stronghold.
It still sat atop the mountain, slightly askew as if it were falling from its perch. As I sped towards it, the stronghold tilted and righted itself. I blinked.
“It just moved!” said Vvael. “How does a fortress move? Sariel, are you doing that?”
“No.”
With a loud groan, the fortress shook as if caught in an earthquake. It began to lift ponderously, the top of the mountain rising with it. Great sections of wall slid away. It headed straight for the nebula portal.
“We can make it if we hurry!” shouted Dirael.
“And go where that thing is going?” countered Vvael. “That doesn’t seem very wise.”
“We wouldn’t reach it in time anyway,” I muttered, frustrated. The top of the stronghold already touched the nebula cloud and we were not even halfway across the seabed.
I clenched my fists in frustration. “You will not take my son!” I cried.
I raised my hands fist over fist and visualized pulling on an invisible rope, yanking downwards. The fortress slowed but not enough. Whoever lifted it was extremely powerful, moreso than I. Even if I could match my foe’s strength, I could not slow it in time before its momentum carried it through the portal.
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