Both Eden and the Celestial Kingdom were built from the matter of Chaos, the infinite space between and beyond worlds. Chaos was a dark place, a strange place where creatures of madness and fury dwelled. Occasionally, one would force its way through a rift between worlds, and the Father tasked the Celestial Army to dispatch these creatures back to the darkness from which they had emerged.
These incidents were few and far between. Eden remained unstained, purified by the Father after any creature threatened to mar its perfection. And so it was, that angels roamed the grounds largely in peace, their call to arms a rarity. Although it would seem a flaw in His design, none questioned the Father’s actions nor his failure to seal the rifts between worlds.
Time passed.
The Father wanted more. As he looked upon Eden and the pleasure it gave his children, he wondered. He felt it held so much promise, the potential for a greater use. He found he wanted to create more, creatures who could partake in its wonders.
And thus, man came into being. He created man in the image of angels, although without wings or any divine purpose. Theirs was simply to live, to bask in the glory of the place he had created and explore their potentials for growth. He gave them free will and blessed them. He watched with joy as they built their lives and found their happiness in their simple existence. Never knowing pain or sadness, and unless the poison of chaos rose against them, they would know immortality. Secure in the knowledge that angels protected them, they feared not death.
The angels co-existed in peace with man and mingled with them in gentle harmony. Like children, the celestial beings taught man, and man grew stronger. They learned, they created their own societies with simple forms of governance. The angels guided them, a purpose planted within them to ensure their happiness. To give them the chance to reach the fullest of their potentials. The angels came to know this purpose as their Divine Principle, and it was sacred above all else.
To achieve these ends, the celestial army strengthened its ranks and protected the Father’s children from the creatures of chaos. The Father created a lower class of angel, those who would strengthen the ranks of archangels and give strength to the celestial army. They were the armoros – grey winged angels who were fearsome warriors that answered the calls of the archangel lieutenants. The Father bestowed some human men or women with a great honor, giving them black wings and inviting them into the ranks of the celestial army. Reinforcement soldiers, these hybrid angels were given arms against the darkness in times of need. In exchange, these creatures – vessels, could enter the celestial kingdom at will. The vessels became respected warriors who were honored by the human world and angel-kind alike for their service to Eden.
Protected, nurtured and loved, men grew. Eventually, so too did their ambitions. With their freedom of will, some struggled against their growing desires, looking toward the Heavens with lustful eyes. They began to seek forms of power, growing jealous of the ability of the angels to traverse the plains of worlds with ease. To manipulate matter, to be strong.
The Father watched all of this, refusing to interfere. He created a Council of his most trusted advisors who would soon be required to intervene in the ambitions of man and help to ensure their survival. The Father continued to have faith in his children, to love them above all else. To believe that they harboured a deep capacity for goodness and compassion.
The Divine Council was formed of six archangels, those who commanded the others, the Amaros and the vessels, in times of necessity. Six archangels, all: Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael. Two others, Azrael and Lucifer, also sat at the Council table. Lucifer above all the others stood in special favor to the Father, who loved him most. He was the First among the Six, his powers strong, he often sat at the Father’s right hand.
“Lucifer. . .” I stuttered, interrupting Michael. “Lucifer as in the Devil? Satan?”
I began to shake. I was not raised to be religious. I was not raised to have any faith. The only thing I knew in my pathetic existence was trying to ensure my survival, to endure in the face of terrible circumstances. I knew about the “Devil” from television, movies. I walked past churches that held crosses, knowing nothing of what happened inside, except that everything they believed in went against whatever evils the Devil would have of them. All the faiths of the world had one sinister being, I was sure, with a different name. . . but one that would be known as the epitome of evil.
“Larin,” said Michael, “allow me to finish.”
The Council was not complete with the Six alone. The Father felt a strange darkness within Lucifer and knew there would be a time when he would have to choose a path. In anticipation, the Father created and appointed advisors, the highest Order of angels, to oversee the others as the Father slowly withdrew. He wanted to allow men and angels to develop the freewill he so believed they deserved. These angels only had powers rivalled those gifted to Lucifer. These angels were the seraphim.
Beings of Supreme light, they were known by many names. The Beings of Fire. The Chosen. Dumah. Seraphiel. And the leader of them all, Mattatron.
The seraphim’s purpose was to ensure order among all the creatures of creation. Their devotion to the Divine Principles reigned supreme. They were the guardians of the light, eternal soldiers against the seeds of darkness that sprang quietly, almost unnoticed at first but growing with man and his ambitions. The seraphim were the direct link to the Father himself, obeying the commandments they were given and governing the actions of the Council.
Once again, there was order. Harmony. The Council watched as man continued to grow, as the seeds of darkness took hold in some of their hearts. The Father, too, watched in sadness but continued to have faith in his children. Continued to believe that they would not squander their precious gifts of life, the precious gift of Eden itself.
While the Council worked and watched, there were two who were not content.
Lucifer did not love man. Upon their creation, he sought the Father and decried their existence – their partaking in the joys of Eden. He did not find them worthy, believed they soiled the grounds with their meanderings and uselessness. Azrael, his brother, agreed. Together, Lucifer and Azrael petitioned the Council, seeking to smite man from Eden. They argued that man was not worthy to share in the divine, their purpose was meaningless. They gave nothing of worth to the Celestial Kingdom and were merely pets that required tending. Like wild animals required taming. He argued they would destroy the majesty of both worlds with their greed and hunger for more, that they would destroy everything the Father had created for them.
The seraphim and archangels sought to have Lucifer and Azrael see reason. To understand there was enough love and compassion to make existence worthwhile. Something to share.
That men were capable of greatness, if given the chance. If guided. They reiterated their purpose – to protect all the Celestial Kingdom, but above all, to protect all their Father’s creations. Life.
Lucifer and Azrael kept their silence after that. For a while. They slowly grew to resent man. Insidious, darkness grew in their hearts, and they learned what it was to hate. They watched man from afar, seeking means to turn the Father against them so he could correct the error of his ways and wipe man from the gardens they sullied. They slowly spread the seeds of discontent among others, angels who would seek to have more standing, more power within the celestial grounds.
Lucifer and Azrael worked secretly, in darkness. Creatures of great powers, of the Divine Council itself, they believed they were powerful enough to shape it to their will. Lucifer, above all, cultivated his power and grew his strength.
As man developed tools, implements of magic, Lucifer sought one out in particular.
An ancient tribe, the Shamash, had created a means of opening the Heavens. A golden disc, bearing inside a crescent of the moon at its lowest, most powerful position, they learned to channel the powers of chaos that existed outside the realms of angels and man. A power only known until then by the Father himself. Wi
th the Disc, the gateway between worlds could be opened, and man could gain access to the Celestial Kingdom. The Council had known of this development, advised of the potential evil by one of their prophets.
The seraphim listened to the Father and went to the Shamash. For the first time in creation, a curse was made. If man abused his gift, if he overreached and sought power beyond their purpose, they would face the end of their immortality. The Father would take their immortal lives, and man would know true death. He had given man the most powerful, important gift and refused to take it back, even in the face of the potential for such destruction and evil. The gift of choice.
Lucifer bade his time, conferring secretly with Azrael. Together, they would raise an army, steal the Disc, and sunder the Heavens and Eden, recreating it in the glory they believed it would be without the scourge of man upon it. They conspired and discussed the means of bringing about the end of the Council, taking their divine gifts into themselves and making them stronger. By doing so, they believed they could overthrow their father and recreate the world. They created more vessels from the bodies of man, and sought to indoctrinate them into their new order. These vessels both feared Lucifer and revered him, vulnerable to his silken words and promises of greatness. Lucifer poisoned their minds against the Council. The vessels were strong, and Lucifer believed that with them, he would have enough strength to overthrow the Council and all of those who stood against him.
Lucifer’s army grew. With the vessels, the Celestial-born soldiers, the armaros who took Lucifer’s side, they waited for their chance.
The chance came when the Shamash could no longer resist the temptation the Disc promised. They made their rituals, and all of Eden quaked as the wrath of the Father was invoked with the power of the Disc.
Lucifer knew his chance had come. Man was cursed, and the celestial kingdom was in chaos. He was satisfied he commanded enough angels, enough power, to make his stand. They arose in force, and legions of vessels battled on both sides of good and evil. A great war, never before seen in all of creation, raged across the planes of existence. The Council was ripped apart, Azrael and Lucifer having turned against them. The seraphim and the remaining archangels fought to the bitter end, and there came a turning point when it appeared they would be victorious.
Throughout it all the Father withdrew, hoping still that Lucifer and Azrael would remember their purpose. Would remember the gifts he had bestowed upon them and come back to the light. He still refused to intervene, choosing instead to have faith in his children.
Lucifer stole the Disc from the hands of those men who sought to wield it, destroying the race who created it with his legion of warriors. Holding it above his head, triumphant, he opened the gateway of the Heavens, calling upon all his power to destroy what remained of men. The vessels amassed, fighting at the entrance, both sides struggling desperately.
Mattatron and the other seraphim knew what they had to do. They combined their strength and fell upon Lucifer all at once, and the Disc fell from his hands. Screaming in rage, he burned, and he, along with the seraphim, disappeared. The Father had had enough. In his grief, he knew his children had failed him. His beloved son had taken the Disc and attempted to destroy everything that had been created for them. Ignoring the great gifts of his trust and love, they turned from Goodness.
The Heavens were sealed again, but the damage was done. The Father took all of those who had betrayed their purpose and cast them from the Celestial Kingdom. What remained of the Council – Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael, found themselves in what remained of Eden, not understanding what had occurred. Without the seraphim, they struggled to understand their purpose.
When Azrael saw what had happened, had learned of his fate and the fall of Lucifer, he used what little remained of his strength to flee with the traitors cast from the Celestial Kingdom, and built his fortress, Solomanta, deep below the earth. He heard whispers from the lips of prophets that Lucifer had survived the fall, that an ancient race had been tasked with sealing him in an impenetrable prison. It became his life’s mission to find his brother and the means of liberating him.
Men rebuilt, adjusting to their mortality. Their lives were now finite, and they knew sickness and death. But they were not safe. Azrael turned all of his rage to man, always seeking the means of bringing about their ends.
Azrael became known to the ancient tribes as the Angel of Death. Though the story of how – or why – became largely lost to the ages. Stories of Lucifer grew and changed, and he became associated with evil incarnate.
The remaining Council floundered for a time, attempting to communicate with the Father but finding their calls met with deaf ears. He had left them, and they were alone. Knowing only that they had been built for one purpose, to protect life, they rebuilt themselves in the world that became known as Earth. In the darkness and the shadows, they fought evil where they could, and the Citadel grew from the ashes.
The Council were man’s last and only defence against the darkness. The Disc was taken back, given to a race who were neither man nor angel. Nine in all, these ones were assigned the task of guarding the disc. They hid them far from the reach of man and Azrael alike and called them the Guardians.
The Guardians became the most closely protected secret the Council had left to them. They feared always that Azrael would rebuild his strength and attempt yet again to bring war across the worlds. A great enchantment was wrought through the magic of angel and Man alike, and the Disc was sealed, only to be accessible to the seraphim, should they ever return.
The ages passed and the Guardians remained hidden in their sanctum. The Council waited for signs, word of the seraphim. But none ever arrived. The seraphim became a thing of legend, twisted into various mythologies as civilizations rose and fell throughout the eons.
One day, one of the prophets of the ancients spoke and foretold of the return of the seraphim. Their coming would be on the tails of the one who would bring about their awakening, the one they called the Herald. They would know the Herald when it came, and a reckoning would fall upon the world once more.
“And that,” said Michael, looking at me intensely, “is where you come in.”
“M...me?” I asked, my mind reeling from the implications of what I had heard.
“We believe that you, Larin, are the Herald. Come to pave the way for the seraphim to return once more.”
I realized I had been standing, my arms wrapped around me tightly as Michael told me the long and short of the history of the celestial wars. I was shaking, trying to comprehend, to make sense of it. Everything that I’d ever known about the world. . .everything I’d been taught to believe, was wrong. Physics, laws of nature, magic being a thing of mythology, none of it was true. Here, hiding in secret and exercising their influence unbeknownst to man, were a race of divine beings who challenged, no, annihilated everything I knew.
I realized I was frowning hugely at Michael, and he was regarding me carefully to gauge my reaction.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “But what. . .what exactly am I supposed to do with this information? I can’t even begin. . . I have no way to make sense of. . . I don’t. . .” I sat down roughly on the floor, feeling dizzy.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, putting my head between my knees and hyperventilating. Then I realized what I had just said. I snapped my head up. I started to laugh, feeling demented. God. The Father. Whatever he was. The creator of everything in the universe. . .universes? He existed. Somewhere.
Maybe.
“Is God. . .is he?” I asked, unsure what to say. I didn’t even know the question I should be asking. I felt my mind was not built to understand this information, these universal secrets. Michael was quietly watching me this whole time, having said nothing since concluding his story. Now, he walked to the window and looked out. The light struck his face and lit it up as though he were a part of it. Pure, flawless. If the wings and the stories weren’t enough to convince me, looking upon Michael woul
d have me believing anything. He was simply ethereal. Perfect, constructed by a hand of something greater than my ability to understand.
“God,” he said quietly. “He, like many of us, has many names. We merely called him Father. Why he withdrew from the world. . .”
It was now Michael who seemed to struggle to find the words. “Why he chose to leave us here, unguided, alone? I thought for the longest time that he had forsaken us. Then, I thought that this was some kind of test. To see if we would endure, to carry out the purpose we were built for in absence of his divine wisdom. His love. There are many faiths, many religions. Nearly all worship him, have created stories and lore. Some of it has its basis in truth, but most are fragments of the history of a time lost long, long ago. Almost all, however, speak of the Father as one who loves his children above all, who speaks to them in times of turmoil. In strife. Who guides them and gives them a reason to carry on.”
He turned away from the window and walked towards me, holding out his hands.
“Truthfully, Larin, I don’t know where he is or why he is gone. I only know he is gone, and we are what remains.”
Michael suddenly looked very sad, and I was shocked. I was not expecting such a human reaction. I once again tried to wrap my mind around what I’d been told, about the wonders he must have witnessed in his long, unending life. Of the horrors, too, and the knowledge he was alone. Carrying on for a purpose that may serve no actual utility.
“Why?” I asked as Michael regained his stoic expression. “Why do you continue to protect humanity?”
Michael smiled at me, looking down. He opened his hands again. “Because it was why we were made. It is why we are here. Without our hope for humanity, for its preservation - without our belief that goodness can destroy the powers of evil, then why should we carry on?”
Herald Page 10
