by RAVENC JAMES
My sight started to get blurry as the monster held me, squeezing me to death…soon, I would see nothing. And that was when it dawned on me. When the beast opened its colossal mouth again, I screamed.
“Death!”
Time stood still. Everything stopped. The grip loosened, and the monster was engulfed back to the ground. The other that had given me the riddle disappeared as well. Unable to muster any strength to fly, I fell and landed on the sand with a thud.
It took me a few minutes before I could stand up and several more before I was able to fly.
I descended at the temple’s threshold made of glittering blue diamond stones. I willed the door to open. To my surprise, it answered my bidding.
I entered a high-ceilinged yet austere-looking hall: no throne, no furniture. There was nothing here but a vast space, which reminded me of the verse I read at the academy. It was the one authored by Archibard, whose verses were some of my favorites. I remembered it said:
To invoke no doubt or escape a suspicion,
He hides his secret in simple exposition.
Laced with clarity and dignified monotone,
And a fortitude of the sturdiest stone.
But even if the truth is perfectly hidden,
It shines through the holes of the walls, darkened.
My interpretation of the verse might have been wrong, but it was still worth trying. There were two ways this could go: either by absorbing all the light or covering my eyes with a dark veil. The latter seemed easier and would not drain me of navi. Having decided what to do, I summoned the bendable blue energy and flattened it to form a thin sheet. I then made it dense enough to appear dark. Satisfied, I placed this darkened energy in front of my eyes and, with it, examined my surroundings. To my left, highlighted by the trapped light, was a door. I passed through it and came out in another chamber.
The chamber had walls adorned with glittering gemstones and a blue turquoise floor. At its center was a vast circular pool of crystal-clear water, and at its right was a colossal, elevated throne. I peered into the pool, and images swirled in the water like one giant plasma TV screen. This was like the looking-well at the garden of the House of Terrestrial Knowledge, except that it did not show the lives of the mortals but of the angels. It momentarily occurred to me that I might be inside the house of a god. This was a temple, after all.
With the sheet of dark Blo energy still blocking my vision, my gaze swept across the hall. To the farthest right, another door glowed from the wall.
The other side of the door was a chamber full of crystal-like orbs floating the way the stars were in the vast space. Murmurs prompted me to examine the inside of the orb. When I touched it, I was immediately assaulted by a presence, unlike anything I’d ever felt. It was like the energy at its purest form. Then a surge of emotions shot into me, ran through my veins, and controlled my heart and mind. I laughed, I cried, and I mourned. Tears poured down my cheeks.
“Over here,” a voice said.
Reluctantly I left the orb and followed the trail left by an energy signature.
“Closer. To your left.”
And to my left, indeed, was an orb occupied by a male angel with a reddish glow.
“You’re crying?” the male angel asked. His voice was gentle and soothing.
“Who are you?” I asked, wiping the tears from my cheeks.
“Ah, everyone knows me. I speak in riddles. I thrive in riddles—”
Then I chimed in, and together we said, “Riddles are around us. I only use words to describe them.”
“You’re Archibard! I read your books in the academy!”
“We have met in such an unfortunate time. You’ve come when I’m about to go.” Archibard’s face showed sadness. His eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
“I can help you get out of the orb.”
“It’s too late. This orb has drained me of my life force. Look at me. Reddish. Red is the color of a dying sun. And what am I? My flesh is but remnants of the many stars that once existed, and my spirit is but a fragment of the essence of a dead god. So in my parting, I shall be content and happy to return what I am that is borrowed.”
“I don’t understand. You’ll heal, and besides, angels do not die.”
“Ah, the illusion. Tell me, my dearest, what did you feel when you touched the orb?”
“I felt a connection and am drawn to it. It looks empty, but I feel a presence—”
“Of the purest energy,” Archibard finished for me. “Each orb serves as the deathbed of every angel that died here. He is fond of my riddles, so unlike the others, my essence is not quickly reaped.”
“Who is he?”
“But I forgave him,” Archibard said, ignoring my question. “We both shared the same propensity for making riddles and solving ones. We would answer each other’s riddles back and forth, back and forth, and only stop when he has to go somewhere. He is an archangel.”
“Archangel? Who?”
“I called him the archangel of death. He explained to me his job, and I had come to accept the purpose of my death. It has taken him long to come back. I longed to see him before I pass. Ah, I can feel it now. It’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” I whispered.
“Listen to me,” he said with unusual urgency in his voice. “I can feel it now, so listen very carefully. I want you to release the essence trapped inside the orbs. I believe that my archangel wished to entrap them all forever. But I can sense him. I can sense him. But alas! Here it comes. I can feel it now.”
“What is it?”
“My death. It’s coming.”
“No. You’re not dying!”
“Promise me,” he said in a voice born out of extreme pain. “Promise me that you’ll break every single orb. Release them so that He may rise. Promise me.”
“I promised you. But who will rise?”
Then he gave a smile that was broken quickly when all parts of him burst into a deep red light. But despite that, he managed to leave his voice behind, saying in a disembodied voice, “He who made the Heaven!”
I did not know how long I stood there watching what remained of Archibard when suddenly a voice shook me out of it.
“Ori?”
It was soft, but there was no mistaken of its owner. With tears running down my cheeks, I traced where it came from until I found him. Him who I had been looking for.
“Venir,” I said.
He was inside the orb, and like Archibard, his eyes exhibited redness. He looked happy to see me, but his glow was fading like his life force was being drained off him. No, he was not. He was not going to meet the same fate that Archibard met. Not this time!
“I’m glad to see you. One last time,” he said, his voice hoarse, as it pained him even to talk.
My heart surged out from the deepest of my core, so strong, so intense, like a beast unleashed after being caged for so long.
No, not Venir.
My hands were glowing.
No, not Venir.
My eyes were burning.
No, not Venir.
My entire body pulsating from an emotion I swore did not come from me.
No, not him!
And for the very first time, my eyes saw what around me was truly made up of—energy, much smaller than the energy swirling around me. So, this was the life essence. Then my stomach churned like there was something inside me trying to crawl out. It bubbled up to my throat and, without my volition, I opened my mouth and screamed.
“Venir, you have to live!”
The orb that imprisoned Venir exploded. The orb next to it exploded too. And the next one. Every single one of them exploded. The essence was released. It was out, merging, joining, constructing back to its original form that had once been destroyed, broken, disintegrated.
And out of the death, the god had risen!
But I did not know what happened next. I did not know whether Venir lived. For in the middle of the chaos, a glowing door suddenly appeared in front of
me and sucked me in with enough force to render me unconscious.
CHAPTER 22
Eighteenth dimension. Indefinable sky and luminous white sand. There was nothing here but a vast space whose purpose was still in its early stage of conception. But it existed. When its invisible dimensional wall—its fiber of existence—suddenly split and an archangel emerged and another one passed through in pursuit, there it found its purpose. A battleground, perhaps? But the first archangel who arrived split another more dimensional wall, and his pursuer followed, and soon the two were gone, leaving this world once again empty. Purposeless.
Michael chased Metatron dimension after dimension until he had had enough. When Metatron pierced another wall with an energy sword, Michael blocked it, closed it back, and sealed it. He also sealed every possible entry to another dimension. Metatron had nowhere to go. He banged the nonexistent wall like a petulant child wanting to get out of his room.
“Face your consequence, Metatron!”
“I’m just doing my job! You told me to keep the secret that those pesky little angels are not immortal like us.” Metatron’s eyes were glowing red.
“I told you only to choose those who are old and dying, keep them hidden, make them feel content even in their death. I never gave you an order to kill them. But you did. You killed even those who had yet more years to live.”
Red balls of energy came out of Metatron’s hands, and he threw them at Michael, who caught every single one of them and threw them back at him. Several balls of energy burst into Metatron’s energy shield and struck him in the core. He staggered before dropping to his knees like a warrior who got stabbed in his chest. Michael advanced toward him.
“Who gave you this order? Tell me!”
Metatron answered only with a sneer.
Michael’s blue gaze sharpened. “I know you will never betray him.”
Michael summoned the energies he needed and created a crystal-like dome, which he used to entrap Metatron. When his labor was done, he sat on the sand and faced the fallen archangel.
After Alter, the second god who had awoken, destroyed his siblings and in the process killed himself, Michael was left taking charge of all the gods’ creations. With the magnitude of this responsibility, he was left with no other choice but to grow up fast and taught himself by experience. He led the archangels in Heaven, and he changed the name to Ether to remind them that they were now orphans and Heaven was no more. He pushed the archangels to grow beyond their potentials. But a rebellion arose, led by Alter’s children. Michael and his allies defeated them. Alter’s sons escaped and made Earth their base.
But there was one son of Alter who joined Michael and helped him fight the rebels. It was Metatron. Metatron professed his loyalty to him. Michael accepted it but did not fully trust him. Perhaps, because Michael had known even then that this event would happen, that someday Metatron would betray him. Yet, even with such knowledge, it did not prepare him for the pain Metatron’s betrayal caused.
“The look on your face tells me that you knew it all along.”
“Yes,” Michael answered. “I’m sad my intuition turned out true. But I was rooting for you, Metatron. I was rooting for you to overcome the influence of your father.”
Metatron huffed. “Overcome? You think I didn’t fight it? You think I did not try hard enough?” Metatron’s wide wings stretched out as he rose to his feet, and his hands were glowing with red energy. He pressed his palms against the wall of the dome and pushed it. Red energy oozed out of his entire body. Red energy rippled the wall but did not break the dome. Defeated, he fell back on the ground. “I tried,” he said, his voice soft, nearly sobbing. “I tried so hard, you know. I wanted to impress you. I wanted to follow you to the end, Michael. You’re my leader, my caretaker, my big brother. I love you.” Tears ran down Metatron’s face. “But I couldn’t resist it: the voice, his voice, my god’s voice. I was created to do his bidding. I am his slave. The only way to redeem me is if you end it by ending me. I can’t even kill myself because he forbade it. His voice…” Metatron touched his temple with his fingers. “It’s right here.”
“No, Metatron. You shall live. I’ll find a way to free you from him. I promise you that.”
“Don’t make any promises you cannot fulfill, my brother.”
“My brother, I just did, and I shall fulfill it.”
“He’s rising from the dead. I can feel him. Soon, he will order me to break out of this cage, and you know I will.”
“You won’t be able to break it. Trust me. I laced the wall with instructions to prevent you from harming yourself. So stay here, brother, and I’ll be back.”
Inside Michael’s chamber was a tableau of archangels all seated still, silently and patiently waiting for Michael to speak.
“Metatron took advantage of both the mist and the Great Riddle,” Michael said, gazing at no one in particular.
There was another kind of mood that seeped into the air, thriving as the tense silence stretched, filling up the room. Michael could only guess what it was. Was it a disappointment? Anger for letting them down? Or were they mourning for the loss of another archangel to Alter?
They averted their eyes from him, perhaps to hide the accusation in them. Michael could not blame them either. It was all Michael’s fault. For caring. For hoping. For desiring Metatron’s loyalty so much so that he silenced his doubts. And this mistake had cost them the lives of the angels.
“This is not your fault,” Raphael said, breaking the silence. His voice was soft and comforting.
Michael sighed. “It was mine.”
“If you’re going to blame yourself for it because you trusted him, then you might as well blame us, too, for trusting you so completely,” Raphael replied. “We still trust you, and nothing can change it.”
“I do, Michael. I still trust you,” Gabriel said.
A beat later, the exact words of “I do, I trust you” were spoken by each archangel so that they echoed inside Michael’s head. Michael’s gaze swept over his siblings.
“It was not his doing,” he said.
Confusion rang inside the chamber.
“He denied it?” Uriel asked. “He denied that he had been killing angels left and right, using the devices that we helped create?”
“He confessed to it,” Michael answered. His voice was indifferent, his face expressionless. His archangels did not need to learn how Metatron’s betrayal hurt him.
“So why did he do it? Why did he corrupt both the mist and the Great Riddle?” Raphael asked.
“Alter made Metatron do it. Metatron is powerless to go against Alter’s influence,” he said.
A beat of silence fell over them before one of them spoke.
“But Alter is dead,” Uriel said. His voice was soft, incredulous.
Michael faced his archangels again. “Alter is immortal. His essence, his consciousness, remains and lives in Metatron’s head and the rest of his children’s. Alter completely controls them.”
“What are we going to do then? How can we help Metatron?” Jophiel said.
“I don’t know, but I will find a way,” Michael answered. “I promised him that.”
“But what is Alter’s endgame? Why is he making Metatron kill the angels? What will he get from it?” Uriel asked.
Why, indeed? Michael thought. The essence of the dead angels would not return to Alter, and the god knew that unless the god was planning to reap the essence himself by returning here in Heaven.
“I believe Metatron’s mission is to harvest the angels’ life force so that Alter can consume it later,” Michael said to his archangels, suddenly putting the pieces together. That was the grand plan. Save the angels’ essence for him to claim.
“You mean Alter is planning to invade Ether?” Raphael said.
“Okay, but I have one question,” Gabriel said. “I thought Alter’s consciousness is the only piece left of him. How can he invade Ether without a body?”
This confusion was shared o
n the faces of the archangels.
“Alter was destroyed on Earth. He died there. The reason why he is still unable to rise is that his essence was broken into pieces and is entrapped as the life force of every human,” Michael answered. “He can return to his old self when he collects all his essence back from them. And the only way to do it is to destroy Earth.”
“By forcing an apocalypse upon Earth,” Uriel said.
“That explains the significant rise in death toll and strange calamities all over the world,” Gabriel said. Then he stared at Michael with worry written on his face. “Is there a way we can save Earth?”
“If we know what Alter’s sons are planning, then maybe we can prevent it from happening,” Michael answered.
“Then I’m on it,” Gabriel said, rising.
“Take someone with you,” Michael replied as he watched Gabriel walking toward the portal.
“I’ll go,” Jophiel said. He, too, stood up and left with Gabriel back to Earth.
Michael returned his attention to the remaining archangels.
“If the gods are capable of returning by regaining their essence,” Ariel said, breaking the silence. “And Alter rises from the death of the humans on Earth, then who is the god to rise from the death of the angels?” Ariel paused, and then his eyes widened. “Unless this god had already risen, an event detected and recorded in the ruby stones. Hence the strange language trapped inside the stones.”
“And this god chose to stay in the academy?” Uriel asked. “It still doesn’t make sense.”
“What if he doesn’t know that he is a god?” Ariel answered. “Because he looks like an angel?”
“What do you say, Michael?” Raphael asked.
Everybody stared at Michael, waiting for the chief of the archangels to provide them the answer. Michael knew who the god was. His forehead furrowed. His eyes were glowing with blue energy.
A voice suddenly spoke inside his head. Michael grinned.
“I believe we will find out the answer soon,” he said, “for a god is calling me to his chamber.”
CHAPTER 23
