by Donovan Neal
Azaziel winced. "Aye he is 'Satan' now, is he not? The newly appointed Governor of house Issisi walked and looked at the various books that lined the dining area, and the colorful masterpieces that Issi elders had painted for Lucifer. "It is difficult to imagine that within these walls laid the murderer who scarred Apollyon and who incited the realm."
Metatron thought to himself. Indeed a Draco no less. I now stand as the head of the house from which treachery was birthed. Metatron mused as he thought on the issue. For Lucifer through his actions had taught them all, that every man could only be enticed and drawn away by the lust that was in his own heart.
"Indeed. Has word come of the fallen?"
Azaziel frowned. “There are rumors that some have sought escape from the punishment levied by El. That some of our brethren hast sought to breach the Maelstrom to gain entrance back into Heaven. It is but conjecture—whispers in the dark. All still wonder of one name above others—Lucifer. Rumor has it that he hast been seen on the Earth. That Argoth even now attempts to bring him under the auspices of the Grigori's watch, yet he eludes them. By what power to do so is not known. But he has covertly hidden himself from heaven’s eye. None but El has watch over him now."
Metatron picked up a flute. It was made of Onyx, and contained within were the winds from the Maelstrom. The flute shimmered with a dark purple hue. He put the instrument to his lips to play. The melody was like none he had heard, and the flute grew tendrils and attached itself to his mouth. Startled, he threw the instrument to the floor.
"What manner of device is this? Is the thing alive?"
Azaziel picked up the flute. "Yea it is an Eidolon, a sentient instrument." He put the instrument to his mouth and once again, tendrils came from the black cylinder and wrapped themselves around his forearms and to his face and he blew into the instrument. Its sound was high yet melancholy in tune. And as he played the living flute, its notes weighed heavy on Azaziel and made him sad, and he placed the flute on a desk to his side.
"The Eidolon only plays the music that is within one’s heart. There are few in the realm, as they require a stone of fire and the Lord himself must blow within it or it must be placed in the Maelstrom to capture its winds.”
“If it plays the melody of one’s heart, then it will be some time before I may lift it to my lips. As all of Heaven still is somber from the events of the past days. But alas, what of thy people? How fares the Issi over the loss of their Lord?"
The angel turned away sighing, "We are still heartbroken, for Sariel was the best of us. Now it turns to me to provide comfort to our house. Yet it is a thing that I lack in experience. Sorrow I was never in El's mind when he created us, yet sorrow persists. I have questions. Questions that I hope if we are promoted to Lumazi I might pose with Him."
"And what questions would you, my friend, seek to ask El?"
Azaziel’s face grew somber as he picked up a picture of Lucifer and Sariel, caught in an embrace and smiling.
"How might I know that I too would not turn Satan against my king?"
Metatron walked to his brother and embraced Azaziel, as the two of them stared down at the image of better times between the former Lords of their houses. He sighed, feeling the weight of responsibility that to lead their peoples would now fall to them, and replied, "We shall ask Him together, brother."
*********************
Talus walked his palace grounds and surveyed the damage done to his home. Here it was that he allowed himself to bring Heaven to war. Here, in his own pride, did civil war ripen under his presence. He looked at the spire that had been bloodied by the fall of Ashelon. Killed by the spite he had towards the Issi Ashtaroth; killed because Talus could not contain the shame that his house was origin to the first of angels to kill another—killed because of his pride.
To think more highly of oneself is a dangerous path of thought, ruminated Talus.
He still looked on his servants in shame. They lowered their gaze when he looked at them. In times past, the gaze of his people was one of beaming achievement; now nothing but awkward attempts to avert one's eyes, to be forced not to bring up conversation. And so the Prince Lord of all Arelim stood aloof from his people. Sober that under his watch both Abaddon and war had come through him. Yet the Lord did not remove him from office.
For El had not summoned the counsel for a week. Nor did He with His word bring immediate restoration to the realm. Instead, El stood still within the temple as He consulted with the Godhead. The triune God remained in counsel with Himself. Talus knew that the Lord would ask for his demotion. To be removed from leading so great a people. Shame surrounded him. Talus was humbled. Humbled to give command, and with each self—deprecating question he took stock in himself. To see how he could have let such an elevation of his importance blind him to cause injury to another. To bring violence into his home, and to stain his race with being the firstborn to genesis violence in Heaven. Talus sorrowed as he looked upon his grounds.
His servants had begged him to clean Ashelon's spire. To remove the taint of Elomic blood from the ivory pinnacle where Ashelon died. But he refused and ordered it to remain as a memorial to the life that was lost. That all Arelim might be reminded that brutishness, and power left unchecked could give sway to the evil of pride and to lust, which launches war. He would never fail to forget the lesson. Never again would his people be lost to rage.
The shrubbery of his palatial home was uprooted and torn from his battle with Sariel. He smiled at the frequency with which he and his brother would contest over who was the greatest. It was such a foolish thing, he realized.
Talus pledged himself to serve the realm. To become the least of his brethren. For lo, Sariel had given his life that all might know that unity was the place of strength. That to act alone was not glory, but rather glory was to act in concert with others. And so Talus would remember Sariel's sacrifice. He would work collaboratively with all.
The prince looked at the spire, vowing to remember that Lucifer chose civil war to begin at his house. For the Chief Prince knew that he could manipulate his brother's hand to introduce Heaven to war. Talus stared long at the spire, absorbed at the towering testimony of his actions. His conscience wrenched at him, and angst gripped him in a merciless hold of remorse, the head of house Arelim was overcome with emotion, and he placed his head in his palms and wept.
*********************
"Reveal the Kingdom of Heaven," commanded Argoth.
Immediately the 'Eye' of the room exploded in swaths of blue, greens, and reds. The spectrum of light splashed over the walls, ceilings, and floors, and Jerahmeel and Argoth gawked at what they saw. For a third of the city of God was in ruins, and fires still raged round about.
Rescue crews tended to the maimed and the wounded. Great towers whose foundations spiraled into the heavens were decimated. Stained colored window panes were shattered or blown out while the exteriors of many buildings had been sheared off. Sliced by the power of Ladders aimed as destructive beams of death. Some buildings still stood, but the damage to the now-crumbling and hollowed out structures was so immense that they would need to be condemned. Jerusalem was covered in soot and ash, flame and smoke, and everywhere survivors looked for the dead, as rescue efforts were underway to succor those still trapped or needing attention. Not all had taken up arms to fight their brethren, for some had taken refuge during the fighting to give medical aid. And everywhere, the people ran to either claim or identify the dead and dying. And woe was all that echoed in Heaven, for the loss of her children both exiled and dead, and grief existed for a time within the Third Heaven. It was a palpable guttural ache of sorrow that never had reached her gates. Some cursed Lucifer and others simply wailed; waiting for news on the absence of comrades now unheard from. But it was the doubt which above all was rife in the air of Heaven. Doubt that the Creator despite His power lacked goodness towards His people. For the people ached for El to come from within the temple, to bask in His goodness once again.
Suddenly a tremor caused the monitoring duo to sway and bookshelves fell while volume after volume tumbled to the floor. More tremors and aftershocks made the building rumble further.
"Are we under attack again?" said Jerahmeel
"Nay but the tremors seem to be increasing. Workers have hastened to support damage to the beams. Reveal: the floor of heaven," said Argoth.
Immediately the room changed colors and the two could see that the basement of heaven was unsound, for the cadmine beams which grew to expand the base of heaven were splintered with fissures, and some were sheared in half, lanced by the Ladders which had halved them.
But it was the fires that disturbed them. From the outer burbs to the center of the Elysian Fields, Heaven was ablaze, and the flames raced into the sky from Elysium. For the great fields of manna burned and the cinders of manna and kora leaf leaped into the sky, coughing great clouds of black smoke. Jerahmeel watched as the food stuff of heaven was consumed by the raging flames. Garrisons of Harada fought valiantly to contain the blaze as the inferno crept closer to the homes of the city’s populace. But for many it was too late. For throughout Heaven, Elohim found themselves homeless, and their possessions consumed by fire, obliterated by Ladders and damaged by smoke. For over half of the city burned, decimated from the wrath of her children's war with themselves.
"Hast El made movement to intervene?
"No," said Jerahmeel. "He consults with himself; the Trinity meditates and plans, yet El is aware of all and has entrusted the people into our care. Come, there are still areas of the great hall that I am instructed to show thee."
Argoth and Jerahmeel climbed the stairs of a room that lead up to the roof of the great hall. A door opened upward, and the duo climbed through and beheld the expanse of Heaven before them. Stars beamed down, shining brightly upon the ceiling of Heaven.
Argoth looked to his left and right, and about them were nothing but rock and walls made of blue diamond, and the glint of starlight made the area to shine as if surrounded by hundreds of small beams of light.
"There is nothing here. What is this place?"
Jerahmeel smiled. "I know not. I only know what was commanded me." Jerahmeel reached into his robes and pulled out a scroll that was sealed with the prismatic seal of El, and handed it to Argoth. Then he turned to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"What is written herein is for thine eyes alone. My command was to bring thee here and to deliver this into thy hands. I will await for thee below." And Jerahmeel stepped back down into the stairwell and shut the door over him. The door snapped tight and Argoth heard the click of it being locked from within.
Left alone in the room he stared at the scroll. He turned it over, and snapped the clay seal in two, and when he unrolled the scroll the words written disappeared from the parchment and lifted as letters into the sky as a great whirlwind and clouds formed overhead, and from the clouds the voice of El spoke.
"Thou art he who shall pen the record of creation. I make thee head of all Grigori. Stand in the presence of the Almighty and see thy God." Immediately a form as of the Son of man yet with wings fell from the sky, and Argoth knelt before the God of all things and spoke. "My Lord and my God!”
The figure stood in front of Argoth and when Argoth looked at him, he saw stars and galaxies, and he beheld times and seasons, and the creation of time itself. Its weaving was wondrous to behold, and men, animals, and beasts of the imagination were all moving within God's form. And as Argoth beheld all that El was, El's form glowed and flashed in white hot light and Argoth was blinded and cried out from both fear and pain, and he placed his hands on his face to cover his eyes. And when he did so Argoth had no more eyes and his form changed as he stood within El. His face glowed through the burned sockets where once his eyes gave sight. He saw the past, the present, and the future all at once, and realized that within El such contrivances did not exist. And as he looked upon God he understood why El said, 'I AM that I AM."
Argoth's eyes were a thing no more. Yet he saw with a vision that surpassed all that one might behold with created eyes, and he looked about him and saw that all creation was merely the outline of El and that El had no form as had been perceived, but was everywhere, and in all things. And Argoth collapsed and fell as a man dead, overwhelmed by the totality of who El was.
When he awoke he thought he had dreamed, but when he looked to his left, two eyes were on the ground next to him. Immediately he felt his face, and his face was not his own, and he felt that he had no eyes. He lifted himself from off the ground and was covered in a white cloak of light, and a new inkhorn hovered over him, and he felt his chest. Within beat a new heart. It was a tome that wrote with the ink pen of God. And Argoth knew that he had succeeded Raphael as head of his people. And everywhere he looked, he saw Grigori all about him, writing and observing their respective charges. There was nowhere in Heaven or beyond that he could not see, for all realms were laid before him.
A voice from Heaven spoke to him and said, “Thine eyes belong to me. They shall remain here as token of thine oath to thy people. For as long as thine eyes are stayed on me, forever shall thou see with the sight of the Almighty to see all that may be seen. That without eyes, thou might see with the eyes of God."
And Argoth bowed. "Mine eyes are yours, my Lord."
"Then go, and watch, and never be moved by what thou seest."
Immediately the door to the stairwell below unlocked and Argoth left the great balcony from which all of Heaven and the realms could be seen. He climbed down and found Jerahmeel waiting in the Hall, thumbing through a book.
When Jerahmeel looked upon the Grigori, he was clothed in white raiment and his face was hidden that he could not be seen. Hovering over him was the stylus and inkhorn Jerahmeel was accustomed to seeing. Yet he had no face that one might see. His hands and feet were opaque, and Jerahmeel beheld stars within him and nodded.
"You are Sephiroth?" Jerahmeel questioned remembering the statue of light he and his brethren had seen.
"I am he" replied Argoth.
"Well, you don't need me to show you around anymore. I do not profess to know the entirety of all that lies here within the mount. Raphael gave me tours of the deep catacombs of the Hall. Perhaps he knew that his demise was forthcoming I do not know. I have showed you all that hast been shown to me. Is there more that you need from me?"
"Thank you," Argoth said.
"You're welcome," replied Jerahmeel, who then turned to leave. Argoth reached out to stop him.
"No, you misunderstand me, Jerahmeel Harada. Thank you for awakening me at the Great Library."
"I awoke you, Argoth because Raphael my brother on his dying breath thought that to do so would save our people. But know this—that if allowing you to slumber would have salvaged our cause—then know of a surety that dormancy would still be your state."
Argoth nodded, "I understand." The two walked past the volumes of books lined on shelves, and past a dark chamber in the Hall of Annals. Argoth stopped to take note of the gold and black volumes of books atop a pedestal sealed with the seal of Lucifer Draco. "Are these the books of Lucifer?"
Jerahmeel entered the dimly lit chamber, the chamber where Raphael had kept hidden the Book of Iniquity and lifted the tome from the podium. He looked at the seal of house Draco and the personal sigil of Lucifer—a sigil all those who abandoned El had adopted.
"They are, I entrust his record to you now. Do with them as you will."
Argoth touched the manuscripts that laid before him, and in a twinkling of an eye, he absorbed all the information contained within the records. As he studied the tomes of Lucifer and those left by Raphael. For a moment, Jerahmeel was saddened as he was reminded of his friend.
Argoth completed his mental digestion of the contents and spoke. "Lucifer was deceived by his own beauty, puffed up by his role and captivated in his importance. A creature blinded by his own perfection. To think that El had once considered him for promotion. He is indeed S
atan now, and deserves the fate handed to him by El."
Jerahmeel replied, "I take no pleasure in our brother's demise."
"Do not speak to defend him," said the Grigori. "The record of his tome is clear, for, despite the inept handling of his Grigori, Raphael has left much in disarray among the Grigoric order. There is much that must be done to remove the stench of explication that now rises to me. I would see restoration to the tomes that occupy this hall. Even now, those Grigori that roam free unfettered by the laws of our people, defile these records with their editorialized version of the cosmos. I would see it end."
Jerahmeel eyed his brother curiously. "And what do you propose to enact such cessation?"
"There can be but one course of action—dissolution. The 'Fallen' cannot be restored, thus, they must be extinguished."
Jerahmeel was shocked at the coldness of his brother's response. "Would you wage war with thine own people? Hast not the realm seen enough bloodshed?" He stared hard at Argoth pained that violence would once again be used to confront their people.
"I am ruler of my people," said Argoth. "And must give account to El. I will not see the records fall to the taint of Lucifer's schemes. I, therefore, will that he be extinguished from the realm. And if not; then I will see to it that the records of my people are purified. They who write must cease to do so. Their tomes must be recovered, their pens silenced. There is no other way."
He faced Jerahmeel and added sarcastically, "But perhaps thou thinkest that I might reason with them and speak pleasantries that they might turn from their wicked ways? Nay, the 'Fallen' will not of their own accord cease and desist. Nor will they surrender their tomes. There is but one word alone, one record of history, and it must be rightly divided. Disunion must cease. There can be no other course. In the name of the Lord I will execute a purge of the tomes."
Jerahmeel winced, stung by the ease with which Argoth would speak of further assault, and taken aback by the angel’s willingness to enter into conflict and spoke.
