by Drew Foote
“Oh, I spoke with him, alright,” I replied. “You neglected to tell me he was a giant spider who would make my head explode.” I frowned.
“Your head looks fine to me. And if I had, would you have went?” Paimon smirked.
“Maybe not,” I conceded. The Demon had a point, and it had all worked out, I supposed. For the time being, at least. Orobas was not as helpful as I had hoped, and we still stumbled in the dark.
“He confirmed the Nexuses were being destroyed by this … Empty One,” Kaly added. “Who entered the world through a breach created in Limbo by Uriel and Beelzebub.” Her voice was tense with restrained anger.
Paimon looked down, troubled, and shook his head sadly. “I hoped it wasn’t true,” he murmured. “Uriel … how far you have fallen, my brother. I had no idea the depths of his despair.” The Demon’s hands trembled slightly on his wooden staff.
“It might have something to do with that other thing you neglected to tell us,” I suggested waspishly. “Namely, that whole bit about the universe being reborn after the end of days. Again, and again, and again.”
I tapped my foot expectantly. Paimon continued to look down at his lap. He was old and beaten, an erudite schoolteacher overcome by the zeitgeist of these black days.
“You wouldn’t have been able to comprehend it,” he eventually replied. “It is knowledge possessed only by a select few. You have to see it, to feel it, and that is a gift Orobas can bestow. But, I suspect you are right, Barnabas.”
“It’s true, then?” Walter asked.
Walter was worried. He was still struggling, as we all were, to cope with the knowledge that Armageddon was nothing more than an interlude before the next act in the play. A play that would go on infinitely long, with the same actors and different tragedies. I didn’t know whether to be horrified or elated. Perhaps both were appropriate.
Paimon solemnly nodded. “It is, Walter. After the final battle, after every soul is accounted for, after Hell or Heaven is victorious … it all begins again. We are doomed to repeat this dance, forevermore. The memories of past lives are lost to all but the most powerful of souls; souls whose awareness has grown larger than a single incarnation can contain.”
“Like Beelzebub and Uriel?”
“Yes, like them, and myself. And there are others, as well. I can only surmise they chose this path because they have given up. They, like the Void, feel nothing but despair for God’s creation.”
“And they just want it to end …” Walter sighed.
I was torn by conflicting emotions. A part of me could understand, now; how heavy must the weight of eternity be? How could sentient beings live with the knowledge of infinity stretching before them while forced to shoulder the burden of the past? It was enough to drive Orobas mad, and it had seemingly driven Uriel and Beelzebub to the blackest depths of nihilism.
I noticed Kalyndriel was silent, as well. She sat perfectly still, a beautiful statue of divinity. Her gaze was downcast and her ashen wings were folded, motionless, behind her. I saw that she was lost within herself as she struggled to comprehend the motives behind her betrayal.
I wondered if it would be enough. Could that knowledge stem the tide of her anger, or would it finally push the levies to breaking? The answer to that question might decide our fate. We depended on her strength, and we were all lost without her.
I, for one, did not want to be lost. The pressure of the ages was great, true, but there was also something appealing to the concept of universal reincarnation. It was the chance for unlimited do-overs, the chance for the spirit of Barnabas to persist across countless ages. That was something to celebrate.
It held the promise of Barnabas the Dark Prince of Terror, which sounded rather wonderful. It also held the promise of Barnabas the Angel of Humility, which was decidedly less interesting, but you couldn’t win them all. I guess that was what appealed to me: the fact that you did not have to win them all. My majesty would persist through the ages, which was perhaps the greatest gift of all.
“So!” I said eagerly, breaking the heavy silence. “The spider also said something about beings of spirit, like us, not having a chance against this Empty One … but a being of flesh might. What do you make of that, Paimon?”
Paimon’s ancient face creased in thought. “That makes sense, I suppose. Spirit would be powerless before the Void, no more than thoughts given shape. Matter, on the other hand,” he mused, lost in concentration.
He looked up. “Unfortunately, like you said, we are all beings of spirit. I doubt we could pick up a random person off the street and ask him to destroy the Empty One, if we even knew how. He would die of fright, like Walter did.”
I smirked at him, my tail waving slyly. “What if we had a human soul, more experienced and enlightened than any other soul, who has seen the Empty One before,” I began smoothly. “And we found him a new body?”
I pointed smugly at Walter.
“We can’t just find him a new body,” Paimon scoffed. “I like your train of thought, Barnabas, I do. However, we can’t just find Walter a new body …” he trailed off, the machinery of his mind approaching the solution I had already reached.
Enlightenment dawned on his wizened face. It felt good to have the upper hand against a former Archangel of Knowledge. I grinned cheerfully.
“We can’t, but a Possessor could! It could cram him right back into someone else’s body. Theoretically, anyway,” I finished triumphantly.
It was an elegant solution, and I felt quite pleased with myself. Possessors were Demons who, obviously, specialized in possession. They got their kicks by inhabiting the bodies of weak-willed humans, taking them on the Demonic equivalent of a joyride. It was a cheap thrill, but I knew several Demons who had made a career out of it. I also happened to know one who owed me a favor.
“Wait, what?” Walter asked, horrified. “You’re going to have something stuff me inside someone else’s body?” He shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not!”
I sighed with exasperation; just like a human, always feigning outrage. “Only if you want to stop the ultimate destruction of, well, everything ever,” I replied. “No big deal.” I shrugged nonchalantly.
Paimon harrumphed softly to himself, his eyes distant. “That … might work,” he acknowledged slowly. “But only if Walter is willing.”
“I’m not stealing an innocent person’s body!”
Walter stared at us defiantly, arms folded over his chest.
Art made a disgusted noise, shaking his head. “Like anyone is innocent, these days.”
The human’s lofty ideals, or squeamishness, might be our undoing. I grimaced, profoundly frustrated, but then another thought occurred to me: one that might just alleviate Walter’s misplaced hesitation.
“Hey, what if we found you the body of a nice, brain-dead vegetable, one with no soul attached? A body like that would practically be public domain.”
Walter eyed me warily. “It won’t have its own soul?”
“Maybe! We’d have to consult a professional to know for sure. Let’s just not rule anything out for now, okay?”
Though hesitant, Walter seemed to relent. He nodded once. Paimon nodded as well, looking somewhat relieved.
“Now then,” I continued. “We find a body to cram Walter into, and I know just the Demon to help with that, and voila! We have a material, reincarnated professor out to battle the Void and save the world. The hero’s journey is complete! And then what?”
I looked at Paimon expectantly. That was the point where my contribution to the game plan ran out of steam. Someone else needed to run with it from there.
Paimon looked evenly back at me, and then shrugged with sadness. “I have no idea, Barnabas. I do not even know if it is possible to destroy an incarnation of the Void, let alone how. That is beyond any knowledge I have yet encountered.”
I let out an annoyed sigh. That was what I was afraid he was going to say. “Don’t you have a magic sword or something tucked up in one o
f your bookshelves? Something to give the hero to save the day?” I asked hopefully. If there was any time for a convenient magic weapon, it was now.
Paimon shook his head. “I’m afraid not, and I’m also afraid we are almost out of time. The Nexuses have nearly all fallen, and whatever this creature intends will undoubtedly happen soon,” he replied grimly.
The Fallen Archangel’s luminous regard assessed us each in turn. “All the realms in existence are in turmoil. Heaven prepares for war, and Raphael will soon blow his trumpet. The Directors of Hell have called an emergency meeting to march on Earth. Apocalypse is upon us, my friends, and I don’t have a plan.”
Kalyndriel, having been silent for so long, stood swiftly. Her eyes were hard and fierce, as sharp as the air before a breaking thunderstorm. Arcturus grunted in alarm at her sudden motion.
“There are things we do know,” she declared. Her voice was unyielding and her nightmarish wings hissed with plasma.
“We know we must get Walter inside a material body, so that’s where we begin. We know that we must fight, and we shall. We know the road we must walk, even though we know not its destination.” The air hummed with the energy pouring from her. “So let us walk it.”
Walter nodded in resolute agreement. I shrugged. I supposed she was right, although I did not enjoy charging headlong into anything without a plan of escape. Unfortunately, however, my personal comfort level had not counted for much of anything, as of late.
In the past, I would have gladly bailed on such an absurd ordeal, but I knew it would not have mattered. Everything would end soon enough, regardless of my involvement, and I might as well have a front-row seat to the festivities. It sounded interesting, at least.
That fatalistic realization was one of both despair and inexplicable release, strangely enough. I didn’t have to worry about choices, or fear, or even the future itself. It was likely there wouldn’t even be a future for anyone, and there was no point in dwelling on it. There was no weighing of options or gnashing of teeth; we just had to try.
What was simpler than that?
A tiny smile crossed my face as I realized the fate of the entire cosmos rested in the hands of our tiny, bewildered, and dysfunctional group. The universe was in a great deal of trouble. That struck me as perfectly appropriate, and somewhat satisfying.
Paimon stood, nodding his head in approval. “Then go, my friends. What little my prayers are worth, they go with you. I will do what I can.” He smiled a tragic smile and bowed.
Walter and I rose. “Paimon,” Walter softly asked. “I have one more question: every time the universe is reborn, there is another Eden, correct?”
“Yes,” Paimon replied simply. A hint of a smile lingered on his ancient lips, and his eyes danced with light.
“And if you remember it all, then tell me this: do Adam and Eve always eat the Apple?”
“Always, dear Walter. Every time.”
Walter nodded, and Paimon’s answer seemed to give him comfort, although I couldn’t understand why. What was worse than an endlessly repeating trap that you were destined to spring? I shook my head, confused, but there was little time left for philosophy. We battled for survival.
I reached for Walter and Kalyndriel to take us from the Tower … and the world shrieked.
With a concussion of screaming stone, the floor of the Tower rocked with cataclysmic force. I flew backward across the study in a heap of black wings. I slammed into the opposite wall, yelping in pain, and the structure around us trembled. The others tumbled about as well, sliding across the room as some horrendous force assaulted the Tower of Knowledge.
“The Worm,” Paimon growled.
He ran toward the open window as the stones of the Tower vibrated alarmingly, issuing protesting streams of dust. The years seemed to drain from the face of the elderly Demon, slipping away like a forgotten mask. Beneath it was a hard visage, the ferocious gaze of a furious Archangel.
“Raziel!” a tremendous voice bellowed from below. The force of the howl seemed to turn my insides into liquid, so great was its amplitude. It was the sound of desolation and hunger given voice. It was the scream of a dead world.
“I come for you all!”
Paimon whirled to us, black robes billowing around his slender frame. “You must go! I will handle this!” he cried. “The fate of existence goes with all of you, and I would have it no other way!”
“Paimon, no!” Walter howled, and he ran toward the elderly Demon. The Tower of Knowledge shook as though caught in the vise of an earthquake. Stones crumbled as the world threatened to collapse.
Paimon’s eyes met mine, desperate and imploring. He nodded.
I gritted my teeth and sprang toward Walter, grabbing his shoulder. Kaly, with Arcturus clinging desperately to her, ran to my side. I grasped her hand and sent us soaring through the ether, leaving the Tower and the Worm behind.
~
Paimon breathed a grateful sigh of relief as the party dematerialized in front of him. Not all was lost, although he, himself, likely was. He only hoped that he had done enough, and that he might at least live to do more, before it all ended. He walked to the open window of his study and peered over the ledge.
He beheld the horror of the Devouring Worm.
Untold miles of segmented, necrotic flesh would round Paimon’s home like a constricting python. The dread Director was a hideous nightmare, a fever dream of impossible size. Digestive ichor wept from the jagged lesions in his skin, still unhealed from his fall from Heaven, in a corrosive black flood. The Tower began to crumble in the force of the hungry vise.
Leviathan slithered inexorably upward.
“My release will not be denied!” the Worm roared with the voice of annihilation.
Leviathan’s fury shook the very foundation of the 4th Circle. His colossal maw, an unimaginable pit ringed with quivering teeth as large as mountains, grew ever closer to the window. Balefire beckoned within the depths of the Fallen Angel’s monstrous gullet.
Paimon’s eyes lit with outrage. “You do not compel me, Worm! You do not dictate the end of this world, nor of Paimon the Cruel!” he cried, his voice resounding in the dead gray air.
Paimon leaned over the window and opened the damned prism of his heart.
He was the Serpent, beautiful and shining, the glimmering light of knowledge that both uplifted and damned. He was the incinerating touch of wisdom, the most treacherous of flames. Chromatic scales burned with furious radiance.
Forgotten words tumbled from Paimon’s mouth in a torrent of blasphemy. Eldritch runes of creation cascaded against the Worm’s thick carapace like artillery fire. Geometries of cold light ripped into violent existence, blasting craterous holes in Leviathan’s skin. Murderous helixes of radiance carved through putrid flesh.
Still, the inevitable mass of the Worm rose around the Tower. The Worm began to laugh, the horrendous echo of his mirth shaking the Tower to shuddering pieces. The Worm was hunger, he was decay, and he was a force of existence as old as the words Paimon spoke. Words could not slow him; he existed to devour.
The event horizon of Leviathan’s jaw approached the window. Paimon hurled his desperate might against the Worm’s unimaginable mass, but it was to no avail. The Worm entirely encircled the black Tower of Knowledge like a strangler vine, a suffocating growth that would kill its host.
Paimon roared with desperation and hope. He would not surrender. Leviathan roared with fury and despair. He would not forgive.
The Devouring Worm constricted his embrace, and the Tower of Knowledge died, shattering into countless pieces.
Chapter 30
Raphael’s Trumpet
So close now. So very close.
The Empty One heard the wheezing death rattle of the ages, a shuddering gasp so long in coming. The sound was music to its ears, a sweet symphony of release. The hour was nearly at hand.
It felt the skin of the material world bulge and rip. The pressure of lost souls built like a boiler. Soon, the press
ure would be so great that the gentlest touch would split the world like a lanced boil. The universe would turn inside out, spilling itself into the waiting Void. It would be beautiful.
There was but one Nexus left that maintained the path to the afterlife. The Empty One stared down at the final Nexus with weeping eyes, scarcely believing that the time had finally come.
Deep within its chaotic thoughts, the creature felt what might have been relief.
It had come so far, it had suffered so much. It bore the blistering weight of the ages with a chorus of screams that none could hear, utterly alone, utterly forgotten. The Void was a martyr to existence itself, the one soul without sin. It was time for that tribulation to end.
Its softest caress severed the last Nexus. The divine matrix of the gateway wilted like a flower in a firestorm, curling and dying. The Empty One released a shuddering sigh from its twisted mouth, closing its eyes in relief.
The way was closed. Heaven and Hell was denied to the souls of Earth. There was nowhere to go but Limbo. Now, all humanity needed to do was die.
It would take ages for enough souls to accumulate in Limbo, but plans had been made. The groveling worms that had helped the Empty One enter creation, the traitorous children of the Prime Mover, had their parts to play. Though the creature despised them, they were necessary; they would exterminate humanity, and the universe along with it.
A vanguard of the Void now surrounded the avatar. The Angels and Demons that witnessed its true face formed a small army. That sight rendered them little more than hollow husks, and there was nothing left of their divine souls. At first, the Empty One was unable to truly control the actions of the mindless drones, but its power had grown.
Now, they were extensions of its will, fingers of entropy clad within a divine shell. They were perfect. With an alien thought, the monster directed them to their final destination: Earth’s entrance to Limbo.
