Rising Darkness

by D. Brian Shafer

  “I think when we are alone I shall call you Daniel,” Ashpenaz began. “It is somehow much more fitting.”

  He looked down on the young man for whom he had grown fond. For some reason he favored Daniel above the others. Looking around as if to make certain they were alone, he continued, “Daniel, are you certain that you will not eat with the rest of the young men?”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Daniel. “I cannot eat these things and disobey my God.”

  “Daniel, look over this city,” he said, escorting Daniel along the balcony, which turned a corner so that he could see in two directions. Truly it was a spectacular sight. The temple of Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar’s tower, the little boats of commerce sailing into the city down the Euphrates, the Hanging Gardens—all of these were in view.

  “Daniel, hear me,” he said. “This is the most wonderful nation on earth—the greatest empire in the world ruled by the greatest king. You have the opportunity to become a great lord in this place.” He hesitated. “But you must do things the Babylonian way. You and your three friends are taking an admirable stand but a reckless one.”

  “My lord?”

  “I mean your insistence that you will not eat from the king’s table,” continued Ashpenaz. “It is without precedent—and your enemies in the palace might use it as an offense to the king.” He looked around. “I can protect you only to a point.”

  “Enemies?” asked Daniel.

  “Petty men, Daniel,” said Ashpenaz. “But powerful. They have the king’s ear…” He glanced about cautiously. “And his eyes.”

  “Nevertheless, we must stay true to the law of our God,” said Daniel. “Those men might have the king’s eyes. But I have the eyes of the Lord of Hosts watching over me.”

  “But Daniel,” Ashpenaz continued, “if you do not partake of the king’s rich food, and you and your friends begin to grow thin in comparison to the others, I might lose my head. The king and I have been together for some time. But I can assure you that in this matter there would be no reprieve.”

  Daniel thought about it for a moment.

  “I do not wish to see you in danger because of our actions,” he said. “Do this. For the next ten days allow us to eat only water and vegetables. If at the end of that time you think we are looking thinner than the others, then we will do as you ask.”

  Ashpenaz smiled at Daniel with great relief.

  “Agreed,” he said. “We shall put it to the test for ten days. Now go and join the others.”

  Daniel bowed and left the balcony.

  “I have never seen such a man after the heart of his God,” he said aloud, looking at Marduk’s temple. “A God that he cannot even see.”

  “That, Serus, is Daniel,” said Gabriel.

  The archangel had brought Serus to Babylon to introduce him to the man who would be his charge for the remainder of the man’s life. Crispin was with them, having been dispatched to Babylon when it was learned that Pellecus was the prince over this kingdom. The three angels watched as Daniel disappeared into the palace after his talk. Walking along the same balcony, they strolled past Ashpenaz who seemed lost in very deep thought.

  “I wonder what he is thinking about?” asked Serus.

  “I would say that he is trying to determine just what sort of fellow Daniel is,” offered Crispin. “After all, he doesn’t usually experience such blatant integrity!”

  “The Lord has a very special plan for Daniel,” said Gabriel. “He will be one of the greatest prophets of Israel.”

  Serus looked at Daniel from the corner of the room where he and Gabriel had stationed themselves. “A prophet? In the wickedness of Babylon? How can that be?”

  “You must understand, Serus, that just because the nation has been destroyed does not mean that the Lord’s plans are altered,” said Crispin. “It is the prerogative of the Creator to run His plan as He deems fit. Unfortunately it is the nature of the creature to run afoul of it.”

  Serus looked at Crispin.

  “So then all this sputtering from Lucifer and Pellecus and the others about the war almost being over…”

  “Is just that,” said Crispin. “Sputtering.”

  They entered the palace and walked toward the assembly hall where Daniel and the others were being instructed. As they passed through the halls, several devils saw Gabriel and cursed him. The angels ignored these vile spirits and continued talking.

  “So you see, Serus, what Lucifer and Pellecus and most humans have yet to figure out is that the Lord is not relegated to their opinions or expectations of Him. He is sovereign, and as such that also makes Him at times unpredictable. A dangerous trait with which to contend when one is strategizing against the Lord based upon flawed and creaturely presuppositions. Pellecus understood this…once.”

  “And Daniel?” asked Serus. “How does he fit into the Lord’s plans?”

  Gabriel looked first at Crispin and then at Serus as if what he was about to divulge carried tremendous weight.

  “Daniel will be given a message that is both terrifying and wonderful; a message that shall speak both to his times and the end of the age. Most importantly, Serus, he shall speak of the Messiah.”

  “The Messiah?” asked Serus.

  “Yes,” said Crispin, “the Anointed One. It is the Messiah who will one day come to free His people. The Messiah is the Seed of Eve—the one spoken of in Eden—who will crush the serpent’s head one day. The King spoken of by the prophets—whose throne will reign for eternity from David’s own house!”

  “But how do you know this, Gabriel?” asked Serus. “How do you know that Daniel will be told these things?”

  “Because it is I who will tell him when the time is right,” said Gabriel. “But first, Daniel will be tested in many ways during his time in Babylon. And at the proper time, should he prove worthy, I shall deliver this message that is both wonderful and terrible at the same time. He shall write it down and seal it up for the end of the age.”

  Serus took a moment to process all that had been spoken to him. It was fantastic! The Messiah! So the end of Israel did not mean the end of the hope! He was coming after all! It was all beginning to make sense now. From Adam to Abraham to David to the Messiah—the Seed was slowly coming forward to one day be born as the prophets had said!

  “I have to admit that I thought the war was almost over—if not almost lost,” said Serus, with a tinge of embarrassment.

  “Poor Serus!” said Crispin. “I would say that the war is neither over nor lost!”

  “Gabriel? Here in Babylon? Astounding!”

  “Yes,” said Lucifer. “And true.”

  “But what is he doing here?” asked Kara.

  “That is our task to discover,” said Lucifer. “That simpering Serus was with him. And Crispin. It seems, Pellecus, that your administration of Babylon is not as secure as you thought!”

  The three angels were standing on the king’s tower, looking over the city. It was amazing to them that humans were so dull of the spirit world. Here was this bustling crowd below—enormous avenues filled with shops and people; soldiers in their watch towers and priests in their temples—and all were oblivious to the numbers of wicked angels who inhabited their city with them!

  Everywhere devils could be seen seducing the people in their proud delusion of security and supremacy. Babylon was a world empire at peace with itself and led by the greatest of kings—a king who was completely unaware of the dark spirits that had saturated the very core of his nation.

  “So many of our own angels here,” sputtered Kara, looking around as if at any moment Michael or Gabriel might swoop down upon him. “It is quite obvious that this place is darkness and death to the Jews. Their nation is finished and the temple is destroyed. So why should the archangel be here?”

  “It is certainly refreshing to see Kara losing his mind at last,” said Pellecus. “Obviously he is on some very important assignment.”

  “But why?” continued Kara. He turned to Lucifer. “You said
that once the temple was destroyed our struggle would be finished.”

  “Quiet!” screamed Lucifer, his reddish-purple aura beginning to manifest with impatience. “Don’t you see that we have been undercut by the Lord! Thanks to Pellecus’s insistence that we keep abreast of the enemy’s movements, we have discovered that something is afoot here in Babylon. The trail, unfortunately, leads to bigger game than we had anticipated.”

  “We were looking for elements of the Host and we found an archangel,” said Pellecus. “My angels in the palace have discovered some curious and potentially threatening information. Shall I report?”

  Lucifer nodded in assent, his aura fading as he calmed down.

  “The archangel Gabriel is here to watch over a particular Jew taken captive during one of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquests,” he began. “Daniel is his name. Unlike his brothers, he is a man who, while living in a foreign land, will not serve its gods. He won’t eat of the king’s food, drink of the king’s wine, nor partake of the king’s hospitality. And,” he added with a bit of drama, “he is a man who will be a prophet!”

  “More prophets,” fumed Kara. “I thought we had killed all the prophets.”

  “This, of course, means something else,” continued Pellecus. “It means that the war must continue.”

  Lucifer glared at Pellecus, but his stare softened to resignation and realization that this was in fact the truth. The war must continue.

  “Then the Seed is still here,” said Lucifer, looking down upon the city. “Somewhere among these people, somewhere among these captives.”

  Lucifer turned back toward Pellecus and Kara. The sun was just beginning to set over the city behind him. His dark silhouette stamped the brightness of the sun whose rays shot around the black figure.

  “It means that our only hope is not simply destruction of the country, but of the people. It means that the Seed will never be secured until the last Jew is dead or completely absorbed by other nations.”

  He stepped out of the sun and continued.

  “Of course, I would prefer they all die, but that would be difficult. Better to begin as usual with those who show the most promise in terms of their ability to oppose us.”

  He turned to Pellecus.

  “I suggest that you make things difficult for this new prophet in Babylon!”

  Bethlehem, 4 B.C.

  “I see the boys are awake again,” said Elron, who had returned from his watch. His son, Joshua, stood and greeted him.

  “Father, we have been talking about Daniel!” he said excitedly.

  Elron looked at Daniel, who had been sitting by himself that last time he had seen him. He wondered what this was all about.

  “Daniel, have they been disturbing you?” he asked.

  Eli laughed loudly, as did the others around the fire. Joshua suddenly understood what his father meant.

  “No, no,” he pleaded. “I mean we were talking about the real Daniel!”

  “Oh!” said Elron. “Sorry, Daniel!”

  “That’s alright, Elron,” said Daniel. “I only wish that I were real too.”

  The camp exploded with laughter—not so much at the play on words but the fact that they were spoken by Daniel. What was happening with this man?

  The men settled down around the fire once more for the final hours of the evening. Elron sat next to his son, who was glad to have his father back with him.

  “What have you learned about the real Daniel?” Elron asked his son.

  Everyone smiled at the question.

  “He was a prophet! At a time when there were no prophets!”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly say that, Joshua,” said Eli, careful to protect his words. “Remember that Daniel lived around the same time as Ezekiel. The Lord was at work even while His people were in exile.”

  “But there were enemies who wanted to destroy Daniel,” Joshua continued. “Men who were jealous of him and wanted him dead!”

  “But why?” asked Jarod. “The king liked him, didn’t he?”

  Eli leaned back, and thought about his words. Now that the adults were back he weighed his words more carefully.

  “Because, young Jarod, it seems that men are always jealous of that which is real and pure and true,” he said. “And evil especially cannot tolerate something that is righteous. Some men were jealous of Daniel’s integrity, and they wanted him destroyed.”

  “So what did they do?” asked Joshua excitedly.

  “Like most evildoers they set a trap for him,” said Eli. “They figured if they could catch him at something that would make the king mad, they could get rid of him. But the Lord was with Daniel.

  “And do you know what happened to Daniel after those ten days of eating vegetables?”

  The boys looked at Eli, hanging onto his words. He pointed at Beniah, a shepherd who was fairly sizeable and known for his ability to eat a great deal at a sitting.

  “After those ten days they were in better shape than the others,” he continued. “Like our friend Beniah here!”

  Beniah grinned as he tossed another date into his mouth. Everyone laughed.

  “Try as they might, the king’s men could not get the better of Daniel,” Eli said. “Then one time Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. The problem was when he woke up he could not remember what the dream was about! So he ordered all of his wisest men to not only interpret the dream but to tell him what the dream was in the first place!”

  “So Daniel did it!” cried out Joshua.

  “Let him tell it,” said Jarod scornfully.

  Eli laughed. “Yes, Daniel not only told the king what the dream was, but he also interpreted it for him. And such a dream…”

  “Such a dream is right,” said Serus to Bakka as they stood by the little gathering of shepherds. He looked about at the amazing number of angels who were now assembled around Bethlehem in the sky, on the hills—everywhere. “It looks as if another dream is to be realized here tonight. Little wonder that Lucifer is begging to meet with Michael and Gabriel.”

  Serus, who had been with Michael in Bethlehem escorting Joseph and Mary, had been ordered to return to the shepherds.

  “I was wondering when he would initiate dialog,” said Bakka. “He can read signs and prophets as well as we.”

  Serus looked at the star that hung high overhead.

  “Signs and prophets,” he repeated. “Since Eden we have awaited the time of the Seed. Lucifer knows that his time is becoming increasingly precious.”

  “What do you suppose he will wish from Michael?” asked Bakka. “He knows that the Child is not a point of negotiation.”

  “Lucifer as always will seek some sort of advantage,” said Serus. “I know him, Bakka. Remember that I served him in Heaven. We view that star as the beginning of the end. He will see it as the end of the beginning.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “We must have blood on this one.”

  Lucifer and Michael locked eyes. Two powerful angels on opposite sides of the greatest conflict ever met on the fields of Bethlehem. With Michael were Gabriel and several other warriors. Lucifer was accompanied by Kara, Pellecus, and Rugio. Lucifer smiled at the archangel.

  “Well Michael, it is finally coming to an end,” he said. “We have been watching Mary of course, ever since the news. Wonderful annunciation, Gabriel!”

  Gabriel ignored Lucifer’s reference of his announcement to Mary about the Child that she was carrying.

  “Of course it was a rather delicate situation,” he continued. “I mean a Child born without a father in a society that stones a person for such indiscreet behavior.”

  “The Child has a Father,” said Gabriel.

  “Oh yes,” said Lucifer. “Well, I must admit that we were taken by surprise on that one. We knew that the prophet proclaimed a king who would rule an eternal throne. But I had no idea that the Lord Himself would be so…so involved with this woman.”

  “Don’t turn something sacred into some sordid act, Lucifer,” said Michael. “You speak
against the Holy Spirit!”

  As he finished saying these words the wind picked up around them, kicking up dust and debris and forcing the unfortunate people who were not yet registered to cover their eyes and mouths for protection from the freakish weather. Then it settled down suddenly.

  “I speak no ill of the Spirit of God,” continued Lucifer. “His indiscretions are of no importance to me…”

  “What do you want, Lucifer?” said Michael firmly.

  “We wish to discuss the Child,” said Kara. “Naturally.”

  “Ah yes,” said Gabriel. “Well the Child is quite safe, and not one of your angels has been able to penetrate the shield we have placed about Him.”

  “So I heard,” sneered Kara. “No matter.”

  “We are here to discuss the future,” said Lucifer. “Once the Child is born there shall be much destruction such as this people have never witnessed.”

  “You are forcing this war into a bloody conclusion,” stammered Kara.

  “These people will never listen to this or any other prophet,” said Pellecus.

  Michael smirked at the demons who stood before him. Crispin, who had been standing with the archangels, moved to the front to speak.

  “Since Eden and even before, you have opposed this,” he said. “You have done all that you could to stop the Seed from arriving. You have introduced idolatry that profaned God’s temple and saw its destruction; you have inflamed pagan nations to occupy the holy city; you have dispossessed these people of their nation while possessing their minds; you have brought sickness and war and plague and murder to the people of God. You have contested us in every way—and still you cannot stop the plan of God. You foolish demons! From whence comes such pride that you should oppose the living God?”

  “We shall continue to oppose,” said Lucifer. “This Child shall fail like the prophets before Him. The one advantage that we have always been able to exploit is the one factor over which even the Lord Himself has no control—the free will of humans.”