Between Heaven and Hell

by David Burnett

  She gently rubbed her head again. It must be a nasty bruise.

  As she considered what might have happened, the door burst open, slamming against the wall behind it. Dariel stood in the opening, blood dripping from his sword.

  “Our orders are to kill you.”

  Adryel clambered to her feet, looked into his eyes, and tipped her head back, exposing her neck. Dariel hesitated. He seemed to be expecting a struggle or a plea for mercy. He stepped forward, drawing back his arm.

  “Dariel, halt.” Michael appeared in the doorway. “Don’t kill her. Our—”

  “I’ve just finished off eight of her little band. She and Beliel were held in different cells from the others and—”

  She spun toward Michael, her fists clenched, ready to strike if the need arose. “Don’t give me special treatment because—”

  “Our orders have changed.” Michael ignored her, his eyes not even wandering to her face. “Unchain her and bring her. There are other prisoners.”

  “What do you mean, our orders have changed? Are we to allow vermin to inhabit the city?”

  “Adonai will be merciful.” Michael turned on his heel and stalked away.

  “Adonai will be merciful,” Dariel mocked in a singsong voice as he loosed the chain and bound her with a rope. “Let’s fetch your friend.”

  Scowling, he jerked the rope, pulling her off balance. She struggled to rise, but Dariel continued to walk, dragging her behind him, ignoring her attempts to stand.

  “Get up, swine,” he shouted as he threw open the door to the room where Beliel was held. “Adonai will be merciful. Bah.”

  ***

  Michael rejoined Gadriel as he stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the rebels through narrowed eyes. One hundred fifty of them huddled in the dust before them, less than a fifth of Lucifer’s army. It had been a massacre.

  Gadriel shook his head.

  Michael did the same as he watched Dariel tow Adryel and Beliel through the gate and hurl them toward their comrades. Adryel tripped, plunging headfirst. With her hands tied behind her, she was unable to break her fall, and she sprawled across the ground. As she looked up, her face dusty and bruised, Gadriel wheeled about to confront Dariel.

  “We shouldn’t have any prisoners, but you’ll not treat them like this,” he snapped.

  “Save your tears for our dead. She’s a rebel.” He turned to Michael “Allow me to finish her off, Lord Michael.”

  “I should,” Michael agreed, “but no.”

  “She is evil. Whatever happens to her is well deserved.” Dariel stepped toward her, drawing his hand back, but Gadriel caught his arm.

  “Move away, Dariel.” Gadriel’s lower lip curled, and he glared at Dariel. “Only a coward beats a helpless prisoner.”

  The two locked eyes. Finally, Dariel dropped his head and turned away.

  Michael waited until the two of them moved apart, then he turned to the captives. “I gave orders to kill you all.” He stepped forward, towering over the prisoners, spreading his wings to each side, making him easily larger than any three angels or powers combined.

  “Some of my soldiers,” he glanced at Dariel, “wish I still would do just that.” He paused, glancing around at the defeated rebels, some of whom looked away, while others met his eyes defiantly.

  “But you are not dead. . .Adonai has spared your lives.”

  “He is a fool.” Lucifer began to chuckle. “He really is. A softhearted fool. Demonstrably incompetent as a ruler.”

  Michael waited patiently until Lucifer’s laughter subsided and was replaced by a smirk, then he spoke to the rebels, reminding them of their options.

  “If you will renounce Lucifer and his cause and pledge your allegiance once again to Adonai, you will be released and you may come home.”

  The prisoners began to talk among themselves, but their chatter was silenced when Lucifer struggled to his feet and turned to the remnants of his army.

  “You’ll take him at his word? Anyone who does that is as big a fool as Adonai.”

  “The offer applies to you, Lucifer. Renounce your opposition to the creation of the humans. Return your allegiance to Adonai. You too may come home.”

  Lucifer laughed again. “And if I don’t? If they don’t?” He gestured at his soldiers. “What do you plan—”

  “I renounce him.” One angel struggled to his feet.

  “I do too,” a second angel called out.

  A flurry of voices came from behind Lucifer.

  “As do I.”

  “Me. . .me, too.”

  One third of the hundred fifty accepted Lord Michael’s offer. Lucifer sneered at them as they were unbound and escorted into the city.

  “What about the rest of us?” Beliel growled.

  Michael waited for several moments, before turning to Gadriel.

  “Transport them to the pit. Throw them in.”

  ***

  For the entire day they sat in the dirt, blocking the road. Their wait was interrupted only by meals until, as darkness descended, the soldiers built fires and distributed blankets. As they handed out small platters of bread and cheese, Adryel found a large piece of ice on her plate. She caught the soldier’s robe.

  “The ice. What is it for?”

  “Your face,” he said.

  “Who told you to give me ice?”

  The soldier moved on without replying, and Adryel searched the group, finally spotting Gadriel standing on the wall. It must have come from him. He used to be Ramael’s friend, her friend too. She started to cry softly as she pressed the ice against her swollen face.

  No one except for Lucifer spoke at length, and he mainly commented on the stupidity of Adonai, and he held out their treatment as poof of his incompetence.

  “An enemy should be executed,” he once shouted at Dariel, “not coddled, not fed and watered. I would have hacked your heads off if. . .if the battle had gone differently.”

  Dariel had not replied. Some of the prisoners began to whisper that Lucifer should be silent rather than trying to provoke their captors.

  As Adryel lay down to sleep, her arm under her head as a pillow, she thought of Ramael. She wished she could be at home with him now, in their bed. How long had it been since she left home? How long since the morning of the debate? Nothing had been the same since.

  Renounce Lucifer and his cause and pledge your allegiance once again to Adonai. . .

  If she wanted to go home, she supposed she would need to say she regretted joining the rebellion. In truth, she did regret the bloodshed. The stones should not have been tossed in Palace Square, or from the wall. They should not have barricaded themselves in the Institute. Certainly, they should not have attacked the city. For all of these, she could certainly express sorrow.

  Her problem was that she believed Lord Lucifer was right—the creation was wrong.

  Truthfully, the human Adonai had shown her did not appear dangerous, and when she had told Lord Lucifer about it, he had snorted.

  “He was not yet alive, was he?” he’d asked. “Even the most ferocious beast seems safe when it is asleep or dead.”

  He had been correct.

  Perhaps an armed rebellion was not the best way to solve the problem, but she had seen—she still saw—no alternative. What they had tried to accomplish was right even if their method had been flawed. She could not renounce it.

  In any case, Ramael was not awaiting her at home. Michael had let him die. Adonai had betrayed her. She could not pledge her allegiance to him.

  She heaved a deep sigh and stared blankly toward the plain. Nothing mattered any longer.

  ***

  As the sky began to lighten the following morning, Adryel was awakened by the creak of the gates, the clatter of wagons driving through them, and the whinnies of horses pulling the wagons. She sat up and rubbed her eyes as the drivers pulled on their reins, bringing the horses to a halt beside the captives.

  Tied hand and foot, they were loaded into the wagons
and, once again, began the trek across the plain, this time to the mountains in the east. She recalled her first journey away from the city. She had walked then, rather than riding. She had scrounged for food and water. She had almost been attacked by wild animals.

  This journey would be different.

  On the first occasion, she had been cast out of the city, but she had chosen what path to take. Now, she was a prisoner, and she was given no choice. On her first journey, she had feared she would not reach her destination. This time, she feared she might, and she almost wished she would die on the way.

  The pit was a shadowy, little-understood place. Stories concerning it abounded. More than a simple prison, it was often described as a place of torment, a deep hole with an eternal fire burning white-hot at its core. A dark and dismal place, it was said to be home to scaly creatures who fed on the angels who were consigned there.

  It was also said that the ghosts of angels who had died in accidents or in battle—she knew of no angel who had died for any other reason—lived on in the pit, in a section separate from the others. Ramael would be there, she realized, but she would not search for him. The ghosts, she understood, were but phantoms, insubstantial, without bodies, without homes, without desire, without feelings. She would not want to see him like that.

  Dropped into the pit, you had a choice, she had once been told, of facing the creatures or of stepping into the fire. Your decision was irrevocable and eternal. Even though the creatures fed on you, you would never be fully consumed. Even though you would burn in the fire, you would never turn completely to ashes.

  No one really knew what the pit was like—Michael knew, she supposed—because only the very worst offenders were consigned to the pit and no one who had been dropped into it had ever returned to the city to tell of his experience. As a result, all she had was speculation and stories intended to frighten children into good behavior.

  Perhaps the pit was a myth. Perhaps evil angels were simply dispatched, extinguished, vaporized. Maybe the pit was simply a grave to hold their bodies and they would simply cease to exist.

  She tried to imagine non-existence, but found it impossible. One philosopher, she recalled had maintained that the inability imagine not existing was proof that it did not happen. She’d found it an attractive idea at one time, but faced with the real possibility. . .

  She gulped against the knot of fear in her throat.

  Michael had once been her friend. Gadriel had sent her ice for her bruised face. Surely they would not harm her. They certainly would not end her life. Surely not.

  ***

  It took five days to cross the plain, pass through the mountains, and enter the woodland nestled in the valley beyond. The forest floor was covered with soft grass, the trees provided protection from the heat, and a cool breeze led Adryel to think of the palace garden and the picnics she had enjoyed there with Ramael. They rode for another day into the woods before reaching a clearing.

  The wagon paused as it left the forest, and Adryel studied the clearing. It seemed to be a perfect circle, almost a hundred meters across. Smooth, black rock covered the ground. Not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass grew on the rock.

  As her wagon left the cover of the trees and began to roll across the clearing, Adryel felt perspiration dripping down her back. The heat seemed to be rising, coming from the earth itself. She watched one of the guards take a drink of water, some of it spilling as he held the flask to his lips. The water sizzled as it struck the rock and a wisp of steam floated into the air.

  She wrinkled her nose and then gagged as the odor of rotten eggs filled the air, growing stronger as the wagon proceeded across the clearing. She gasped when she glanced at the ground behind the wagon and spied tendrils of smoke rising from numerous cracks in the rock. Thick, red liquid oozed from the little holes, and rivulets ran down the sides of the small domed hill on which the clearing lay.

  Ahead, Michael and Gadriel stood in the center of the expanse of rock near a large hole, their feet encased in thick, leather boots. The diameter of the hole seemed to be greater than Michael’s height, four meters, she guessed, certainly large enough for several angels to fall through at once.

  She recalled the many who claimed the pit to be but a myth.

  This was no myth. Its entrance lay right before her.

  Dariel grinned with smug satisfaction as he yanked her from the wagon.

  Adryel tripped when her feet touched the ground, and she reached out to catch herself, burning her left hand as she touched the rock, and causing Dariel to smirk again when she cried in pain.

  He laughed and jerked on her arm, almost pulling her completely off her feet. “This will seem pleasantly warm once you’ve splashed about in the lake of fire.”

  The soldiers herded the prisoners toward the pit. One of them prodded Adryel, poking her ribs with a long, metal pole.

  “Faster, rebel.”

  She started forward, but was snatched backward when Dariel did not release her arm.

  “This one is mine. I’ll throw her into the pit myself.”

  Adryel pulled against him, trying to escape.

  “No, no,” Dariel chuckled. “You’ll get to watch the entire show. You’re going in last.”

  He held Adryel at the back of the pack and she watched with horror, wanting not to look, but unable to tear her eyes away.

  As the rebels neared the opening, their voices rose in protest, crying out in fear, begging for mercy, bargaining, promising to do almost anything to prevent themselves from being shoved inside. Their pleas were ignored, as if the soldiers who drove them toward the hole were unable to hear—or chose not to.

  “You’re trying to kill us,” one of the angels shouted as he reached the edge and peered over. “There is no bottom. We’ll die.”

  Michael laughed. “No. Not likely. I didn’t bring you all this way just to kill you. I could have done that days ago.”

  “But we will die. . .”

  “You have wings,” Michael said. “Use them.”

  “Have mercy on us,” several shouted.

  “Have mercy. I beg you. I implore you. . .”

  They began to struggle, pushing and shoving each other, scrambling to find footholds in the smooth, black surface, bracing their feet against outcroppings in the rock, wrapping their arms around the soldiers’ bodies, clinging to their legs. Anything to avoid plunging over the abyss.

  To Adryel, they seemed like a chaotic colony of honeybees swarming around their hive, unwilling to enter.

  Suddenly, five of the rebels turned and rushed the soldiers, knocking two of them to the ground and trampling them as they rushed away from the pit. Four of them were quickly rounded up and dragged, squealing, toward the hole. The fifth one, Beliel, sprinted away.

  “Go,” Adryel screamed. “Run. Run.”

  Michael, himself, pursued Beliel, slung him across his shoulders, and carried him to the pit, while others attacked the soldiers, snatching the poles from their hands and using them as clubs. A cheer went up when one of the soldiers was shoved into the pit. Adryel placed her hands over her ears to muffle the sounds of his shrieks. They grew fainter and fainter, and she felt as though a pit had opened in her stomach as she realized how deep the hole must be if she could hear his cries for such a long time.

  In the confusion, Adryel stomped on Dariel’s foot, broke his grip on her arm, and ran in the other direction, but she only managed four steps before he caught her. He drew back his hand to strike her, but his eyes cut to his injured finger, the one she had bitten a chunk off at the Institute, and he seemed to think better of it. She gagged and choked as his hand closed about her throat, pulling her back toward the others.

  One of the rebels threw himself behind a boulder that rested nearby. It was so large that the distance around it was easily twice the size of the hole, but a guard reached behind it, fished him out, and dragged him toward the pit. His legs rubbed across the burning rock. Adryel covered her eyes when he was lifted
into the air and she saw blisters oozing a thick, white liquid.

  Another tried to hide, crawling under the blankets on which they had slept the night before. He was yanked from the wagon as everything inside was tossed onto the ground, and he was carted away.

  The soldiers drew their swords and restored a semblance of order.

  “Into the pit.” Gadriel motioned to those who stood nearest to the opening. When no one moved, he lifted two of the rebels and dropped them into the hole.

  “No. No. Don’t push. Don’t. . .No. Help me. . .”

  The desperate sound of their screams seemed to rise up even as their bodies dropped out of sight. Adryel’s stomach roiled with bile at the palpable and undeniable suffering encased in each shrieking plea.

  One rebel stepped forward, as though willingly dropping into the hole, but as he began to fall, he spread his wings and ascended skyward. Adryel gasped as Gadriel caught his ankle and yanked him from the air, flinging him into the hole headfirst.

  Gadriel prodded several rebels who refused to step forward. “Go. Go.”

  Surrounded by desperate cries, Adryel felt a surge of pride at the brave few who simply stepped into the hole and dropped away, while others were pushed, squealing as they dodged the metal poles with which the guards prodded them, only to discover no ground on which to place their feet.

  “Move on,” one of the soldiers shouted at those who hung back.

  Many were lifted off their feet and then dropped or tossed through the hole. Adryel began to cry as one young female sobbed for her mother and then renounced Lucifer as she slipped from the guard’s hand. Adryel took a step forward, reaching for her, but she was several meters away.

  Michael then made a grab for the young angel, catching one finger and holding it until Gadriel could drop a rope into the pit and pull her back to the surface.

  Adryel bit her lower lip. She yearned to be one of the brave ones. She wanted to approach the pit on her own, to step in without being prodded. She imagined herself striding through the remaining rebels with her head high. She slipped her arm from Dariel’s grasp and took one confident step toward the dark, gaping hole, but the shrieks of the falling angels filled the air, the pit was as dark as Lord Lucifer’s robe, and her trembling legs refused to move. Dariel laughed at her, but she was unable to move closer.