by T. M. Lakomy
Estella felt nauseated and the feverish fire chafed at her soul. She felt repulsed by his touch, but unable to extricate herself from him or repel his intruding gaze. His fingers trailed through her hair lazily, and one stalwart arm kept her body close against his. She sought to foresee his designs for her in the maze of his eyes, but found no answer. His fingers with each brush loosened the bonds of her mind and its secrets and gently opened the doors to the fastness of her soul. She began to weep with fear and he smiled, his fingers gently wiping her eyes with a loving kindness that sent more fear and horror down her skin than if he had decided to draw out a carving knife and hack at her flesh.
“I am very protective of my flock, Tsura. There are many impostors in this world that seek to lead humanity astray. I engineered your free will and your ability to rebel, and in that you have drawn your source in me.” His eyes glittered in remembrance. “But I love each and every one of you. Each of you are precious souls to me, to watch over, my children, in my beautiful creation, where I must protect you from the false god that seeks to usurp your authority.”
His fingers trailed to her eyelids. “You have the gift of sight. Look within me and see, see if I am lying to you. Trust yourself, for there are things that cannot be said, only seen. I am proud of what you did tonight, for it was taking ownership of your divine right. Vengeance is of the Lord, and by exacting justice you have become godly, for God is justice.”
His finger drifted carelessly to her lips. “But why are you silent, my lioness? Open your heart to me, for I long to hear your voice. You were as I dreamed and conceived in thought. You have not disappointed me.” He smiled again knowingly, and Estella turned her face away only to have him bring her face gently but firmly back to his gaze. “Talk to me,” he commanded, and the urgency in his voice made the fire in her body flare.
“Are you not the master of all lies and the craftiest of all schemers?” Estella replied. “Is there anything I can say that can triumph over your cunning, O fallen one? There is an immense population of willing souls for you, why persecute me?” she demanded, her voice frail and vulnerable, but holding the sharpness that had defined her from the start.
He smiled again, slivers of heavenly patience cradling her like an infant. “Oh my poor child, how they have turned you against the one that loves you the most. Am I not the light bearer? The one that came and taught humanity the art of tilling the lands and growing foods? Of fashioning clothing and obtaining silks? Have I not taught you the art of warfare, that ye be not vulnerable to the ravenous beasts and the invaders from the heavens eager to steal your inheritance? Have I not stolen knowledge for you to become as great gods among men, and were not your greatest civilizations built by my initiates? Have I not given you the Sophia and the chance to awaken the sacred fire?”
Lucifer’s hand clasped the back of her head gently. “And haven’t I done so to awaken you to the full potential of being God? But you have been deceived by a false god masquerading as a meek man who loves you, and he has defanged the lion and clipped the talons of the eagle, and led you all as sheep to the slaughter, and through doctrine blinded you and reduced you to beggars.” His soft rebuking tone was indulgent and understanding.
“Is that not your job in this existence, Lucifer?” Estella countered. “To lead us astray upon false paths of self-deluded grandeur just to fall into perdition? But what I cannot understand and never did was how someone so close to God himself could turn on him. Somehow I never believed the original story . . .” Estella was drowsy, but her mind had steadied and she had resigned herself to the dread game she had entered.
“Indeed good reasoning, for I am no traitor,” said Lucifer. “Does not your heart turn away from their doctrines sensing the reek of hypocrisy and failure? I never turned my back on him, I alone carried out his commands when all the other angels bowed to Adam.” His fingers were at her heart now where the resentment against meek Christian dogmas were riled within her, disdain for the doctrines of the feeble savior supposedly dying for a world that continued to self-destruct.
“But you know the truth, Tsura,” he said gently, and his fingers were again in her hair. “I came to teach you how to rule over the elements, how to tame the fires to yield their secrets to you, how to reap the wealth of earth’s great jewels and precious metals, and how to harness the authority over numbers and the unseen. The closest to me were the greatest rulers; Zeus, Odin, Horus, Athena, Freya, Amun-Ra, Thoth, and many others. They became lights to this world and you prospered. I was a benevolent god, and I judged with mercy and balance. And I often overlooked the sins and mistakes of your people to mete them their reward afterwards, for I am the ouroboros, I am infinity, I am the endless spiral into nothingness, itself into itself. I am my own god, and I am my own sacrifice. I am the initiator of the Elder Folk.
“I honored women as the keepers of wisdom, and I set them to rule as equal counterparts to men. I unleashed within them the sight of ages for them to be connected to my light and see me, and guide humanity across the shifting tides. The false creation and the false god always seek to mirror the truth and yet distort it, that you may be confused and lost unknowing which way to turn. And thus have you fallen from your glory and become slaves to the False God, Samael.” Lucifer sighed gently, and grief was etched on his delicate features as he closed his lucent eyes momentarily. For a moment Estella was taken aback.
“I grieve, Estella, for what they have done to you all, my beloved ones, my children of the stars, wrought of stardust and fire and the abundance of my love.” The fire in his eyes blazed with indignation. “The False God stole the image of what is sacred, my magic, my skills and arts and initiatic rites, and carved out of them a mirroring darkness. Your Christ did not come to deliver you from me nor from evil. He came to enslave you and rob you of your power and authority. The reign of the lamb replaced the line of lions and gods, reducing you to beggars and cowardly slaves that spit on life and reject its bounty and willingly desecrate it.
“The god of Abraham is a false god who first crushed the power of women and then made servants of the race of men. He chose of all the peoples of the world the most bent and crooked, those mean in mind and spirit, easily malleable to sin and cowardice. Then he molded them into prophets to bring down the great civilizations that I had set up for the glory of mankind. He deviated them from the sacred truth through lies and petty tricks, outlawing magical wisdom and sacred knowledge. Then he established rules and laws that robbed you of your might and purpose and reduced you to slaves. And you became slaves to a law that bound you to a god that desired slavery and adoration and severance from the holy Mother and the divine Sophia.
“The false doctrine of the lamb ensures you never fight back against wrongs, and that you remain as beggars before God’s gates, laden with guilt and reeking of sin. You are bound by the shackles of the laws that oppress the divine fire, and you have turned against me! I bring abundance and life and the opulence of existence, and yet you have made me the enemy. And my false brother has won over most of you. His base dogs think that rejecting life earns them a place in paradise, and that oppressing women will obtain them rewards for their cruelty, but that is not so.
“Even though these servants of Christ have erased the sacred texts and demonized my faithful demiurges and burned women at the stake for having my gift, I am always here. I am as cold and cruel as I am warm and loving, and I will fight for your freedom and the liberation of your mind. I will watch you prosper once again, and do greater deeds than those of your forefathers, who became gods of their own worlds. I am just, but I am angry at the unjust destruction of my worlds. I am the true son who inherited the earth and tilled it and watched it grow and prosper until the imposter came and stole it from me. And every now and then I use the same cruelty that destroyed my works against them, and I reveal the ugliness and decay of their structures. My Father is proud of me and my travails, and he knows how faithful I am, and how dedicated I am to restoring the true balance of
things—and most importantly to restoring you, my Sophia. You are the missing light of the world, seeking to hide in the Twilit worlds where the broken fragments of the divine feminine are split into the three facets of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. I wish to see you whole and restored.”
Lucifer breathed over Estella’s face, and as she inhaled she was filled with raptures of ecstasy that shook her bones.
“I am the air you breathe and the breath of life that gives you sustenance. How could you betray me and believe I am evil?” The swirling nebulae deep within his eyes were wild and compelling, and she felt lost and confused, irrevocably sundered from her beliefs. For there was nothing in his words that rang untrue, and nothing he said that did not tally with her own convictions.
“Why do I sense the edge of a knife wrapped beneath the haze of loving kindness?” murmured Estella. “Why do I feel that one can look upon your face and despair, knowing you to contain the purest beauty, and yet that there is boundless evil within you?” Estella made to extract herself from his arms, but he held fast as his face darkened.
“Because I am one with the void, and have dared to walk the unchartered darkness and look into it. I know the farthest regions where God’s unsullied gaze has never reached. I have seen it, and I have felt it, and I hold it within me—the chaos. I am the ring that holds the cosmos, I am the self-devouring circle that prevents darkness from breaking loose. I am the one holding and bearing it within me. I swallowed the darkness and crossed beyond it. I am the first of the initiates, the firstborn of the undying race of angels, the one that went into the darkness and was not consumed but passed through its death and decay and came out on the other side having held it in me. I am the ruler. I am the victor. I am the vessel of chaos and the pillar of creation.”
The blueness of his eyes vanished, and they darkened to a thick, merciless blackness that was overwhelmingly heavy. Estella recoiled, screaming in terror. “I need the Sophia back in my possession.” His voice was thunderous and dark now, and his grasp became like talons around Estella, who shuddered helplessly and called silently to any force that could come to her rescue.
“Not even the devil can see all ends,” came a voice suddenly. “Be gone, Lucifer, disgraced one! There is no further need for you here.” The voice was mortal and feeble and sounded hopelessly ugly compared to the tender melody of Lucifer’s tones.
Estella turned her head to see Mikhail standing valiantly with sword unsheathed and an ashen grey expression on his grave face. His composure reeked of uncertainty, yet he remained steadfast as he grimly grasped a cross in his left hand. He seemed aged and decrepit compared to the ageless grace of the angel. Lucifer laughed and rose to his feet nimbly, dropping Estella to the floor like an eagle releasing its prey. Mikhail’s face betrayed apprehension as he stumbled but retained his grip on his sword. Estella backed away behind Lucifer, her eyes darting to possible methods of escape.
“I have a piece of advice for you, mortal fool,” spat Lucifer with venom, advancing towards Mikhail with casual ease.
“I am not afraid of you, Lucifer. Be gone! I am a servant of the high God, and I am the one that shall bind you one day before the throne of God himself.” Mikhail’s voice was cold but lacked the acid deadliness of Lucifer’s.
Lucifer swept his great wings like a hurricane, and Mikhail was flung with terrible velocity against the far end of the church.
“Take my advice, child of nobody,” he said, “when Samael comes to rape and pillage what you hold dear, remember you could have yielded to me what I wanted and saved yourself the carnage.” Lucifer turned to look for Estella, who had made her way to the open wormhole above the altar. “It’s either me or Samael, Estella, which do you prefer? I would have you reign as a queen. Come back to me.” He extended his arm towards her nobly, and his silvery hair billowed behind him.
“I want to leave this chessboard, for I was gifted with that choice,” she cried across to him, pointing to the wormhole.
“No, for in the end you will always end up coming back to me. Do not make me be forceful with you, Estella.” The warning in his voice was a stark threat, and Estella’s heart nearly faltered.
Then she heard an echo of the Hag’s voice resounding in her ears. “You will have that choice, now go!” Estella bowed her head towards Lucifer, who was watching her with a feral ferocity. Then she turned on her heel, caught the door of the wormhole, and vanished. In the last few moments as she fell, she saw Lucifer’s wan smile and his hidden wrath beneath the benign mask, but also genuine amusement. Mikhail was nowhere to be seen.
22
THE TRUE CROSSROADS OF CHOICE
The blackened cracks appear in the porcelain veneer so pure
No amount of purging shall restore, mend the outrage of awakening
For what was burned at the stakes beyond the fires did endure
As seeds sown in the subconscious of our future dawn breaking
SHE REALIZED THE FOOLISHNESS OF HER PLAN TOO LATE. THE WORMHOLE had been used to bring Cerberus into this dimension, and it had stayed open to that sphere. Now she was wading through mists in darkness, not knowing where to turn. The path could take her either to Tartarus or the Elysian Fields. Either way had their own basket of problems, apart from the obvious ones. And there was no compass to guide her steps, so she plowed ahead heedlessly. The mists rose to greet her as she went, draping around her and whispering old tales of sorrow.
She called into the distance and fog, but there was nothing, not even an echo. Soon she became aware of her heartbeat and footsteps, and how her voice seemed to have awakened something slumbering and murky—something that had lain too long in darkness and was now finally awake. But she cared little, as naught could daunt her so easily after her recent encounter with Lucifer. She was aware of presences around her now, ghostly shapes barely more material than the fog, hooded and cloaked and watching wistfully with empty eyes. There was a silence that was alive with their music, and she regretted instantly calling out, for more and more specters appeared. They approached slowly with sad gestures and weary paces, and they followed her but spoke not.
She pressed on nervously, walking ahead until she stumbled on something hard. Stooping down, she touched the ground and found she was at the beginning of a crossroads. The ghosts moaned, and their weeping filled the air with the bitterness of eternal loss and perdition. Estella watched them, and though they were a paragon of misery, she was relieved to be away from earth for a while. Estella pondered at the crossroads, grumbling to herself. There was no way to know which way she should turn, or where it would lead her. She mused for a while, sitting down and losing herself in thoughtful contemplation.
“Goddess of the Crossroads? Hecate? Ereshkigal?” she called wistfully into the mists. They swirled around her as she spoke, and bore her words away into the gloom.
At first there was no response, only the sensation of the words being crushed by the emptiness of the place. But after a while the mists began to stir again restlessly, whirling into a solid mass of cloud till the form of a woman appeared. Her body was draped in white silks and silver bangles, and her long hair was piled upon her head in elaborate curls. A heavy headdress, winged and covered in gems, was upon her head, and her face was austere. The mists continued to swirl around her, and as she extended her hands they danced and twirled. Her dark, pupilless eyes whirled with the same rapidity as the tempests of mist.
“Seldom do I answer those who call for me. Who treads here in this wilderness forsaken by the gods?” Hecate spoke with a slowness in each word that weighed hard and heavy. It resounded in the misty plains where the ghosts had fled. Estella sat down before Hecate, cross–legged, and met her somber gaze readily.
“And seldom do I stray from our Twilit paths where the lights of stars are lamps to our delight, and the mists of the universe are a diamond garment to guide our way. I am lost, and you are the patron of all the crossroads of the realms. Would you answer my questions? Long have we held your name in h
onor and burned the incense on your altar, keeping your name aflame and alive in our mortal hearts. Remember me and hold me in your eye. Have we not honored you?” Estella’s clear voice was a cutting knife in the mists. At her words the mists danced faster, as if they were summoned and stirred to life, mirroring the vibrancy of her voice. Hecate smiled thinly, her eyes narrowing.
“My name is long forgotten, even by me.” Hecate paused, as if weighing her statement. Breathing deeply, she inhaled the mists and a grimace formed on her rough-hewn features. “But my shadow walks well welcomed by your hearths. For that alone I shall give you my guidance, though the prince of this world will not take kindly to my intrusion in his cunning game.” Her gaze became a black sinkhole of night, and she stooped a moment to pick up a ball of mist curling by her feet. As she held it to her bosom, it transformed into a feline form; a grey cat with exceedingly long fur and piercing amber eyes.
“Nana guides you. Do not deviate from the path she sets before you,” Hecate said.
Nana mewled loudly and revealed silver tipped claws, then jumped to the ground, fixing her gaze on Estella. She slinked gracefully to her lap, where she settled down yawning contentedly. The yellow eyes cast a merry light of their own, and Estella stroked her sleek fur adoringly.
“Nana likes you already. Good. Follow her, but remember; the path may be straight, but the distractions and the temptations are great. Do not stray after your eyes, nor your fears, for they shall devour you whole.” Hecate’s voice was cold, and Estella recognized a tone of finality. Without further words, she turned abruptly, walking with the grace of a feline to the center of the crossroads.
“Where do these paths lead, O great Hecate?” asked Estella, rising to her feet with Nana at her side.
