Hope's Light

Chapter 14

by Erisian

Book 6

 

If you have yet to read the saga - the tale starts here:

Into The Light

Hope you enjoy!

 

Chapter Fourteen - Balance

 

The crimson trail illuminated by the bracers held steady and straight, but the realm of hot barren desert curved away as we flew higher through a sky of perpetual sunset. There the path twisted to snap at right angles to the realm’s reality, and once more we found ourselves fading through clouds into somewhere else.

Through a salty fog rose blackened cliffs akin to basalt, as if hundreds of individual towers of darkened rock thousands of feet high had squished together like sardines in a can into a unified edifice. We stood upon the shallow shoreline stretching alongside those emergent cliffs, and at the top a sprawling structure could be seen, having been carved directly into those darkened walls. Unnaturally smooth stairs climbed before us, leading from the sand directly into the depths of the mountain.

That solitary path was guarded by a lone figure glowing with sage-tinted flames acting as dancing armor over a deeply verdant tunic. Moss-colored hair billowed freely to their waist, continuously ruffled by the sharp wind pressing chilled air against the stones. And behind them that breeze teased the barest outline of wings holding their own unique shade of forest accenting the wild and drifting hair.

“Approach and identify.” They spoke in the angelic language, tones crisp and clear over the swells of the ocean crashing at our backs, yet sounding neither male nor female. Indeed their features blended a masculine chin with high feminine cheeks, perfect smooth skin flowing across sharp bones as a sepia bark.

With a gesture to Nick and Tsáyidiel for them both to hold steady, I stepped forward wearing still the practically-standard-at-this-point lilac tunic. “I am Amariel, and I would speak with Prince Asmodeus.” For some reason the thought of detailing titles with full formality entirely lacked appeal.

The angel frowned, but then startled with recognition. “I know you.”

I too required a moment to search memory. “You were at the Citadel.”

“I was. Too weak to move and huddled in a corner, yet I bore witness. Though then you had not such wings. I am Posri.”

Almost did I correct them, for that was not their entire name. With wings still extended the final part of the original lettering within their spirit was clearly seen, but it lay smeared and distorted. “I greet you, Posri. And am gladdened at your recovery from that day.”

“Under what aegis have you come to speak with the prince?”

“My own. For while my existence was fathered by Lucifer and exalted by Gabriel, in truth I owe allegiance to neither - nor to the Throne above. I am bound only by the ties my heart would fain hold tight.” Dangit, I’d slipped into formality anyway.

They considered and nodded. “Then I bid you welcome, Lady Amariel. For in truth, the prince has been expecting you. Know however that only you may enter.” They then offered an acknowledging tilt towards Tsáyidiel and added, “With all respect to the Hunter of Hunters, my instructions were clear that should you arrive the prince would see you and you alone. If your companion wishes, refreshment will be brought to him upon these shores.”

The angel of fiery greens pointedly ignored Nick’s presence entirely, causing the mage’s expression to sour though he kept his mouth shut.

Which was likely for the best.

I looked inquiringly to Tsáyidiel, but he shook his raven head and replied. “Appreciate. No need.” Underneath and unspoken was the discomfort of my going in without him, but he knew me well enough to not protest.

And knew that should I have need, I would call.

“Let us ascend then, milady.” Turning, Posri began the climb into the mountain.

Upon feet surprisingly sandaled and not bare, I moved after him.

There were a ridiculous number of steps, illuminated first by the flares of Posri’s leaf-toned armor followed by the light spilling from my feathers as we wended our way along the narrow passage snaking its way upward in a rather meandering spiral. It took us quite awhile, accomplished in a meditative silence which suited me fine.

Though I did wonder why we had to climb instead of just flying to the top. Oh well.

At the summit, stepping out again into open air below rolling grey clouds, an immense plateau stretched over miles of solid rock. No vegetation dotted the surface, only a scattered yet tremendous collection of marble plinths, with most holding a statue or relief carved from the same material - each pulsing with the faded glow from an embedded soul.

I stopped walking to take it all in, and Posri paused as I did so.

As eyes resolved the individual statues, within the mind came clear and terrible visions of what the figures - wielding swords, spears, guns, and all other weapons one could imagine - represented.

Deaths.

But not just any deaths.

Passion flaring within each visualized scene caught and tugged at the core. Hatred, love, fear, terror - each tinged powerfully with strong emotion along with burning will and resolve. Souls and even demons, for the souls which had been within them had also been collected, the sculptures capturing the outline of the spirit and essence of each.

None were exactly the same.

As the initial surge of disorientation passed, Posri spoke.

“I shall inform the prince that you are here.” After a bow, they strolled between a pair of standing stones and flickered away.

This left me alone amidst the gallery to wander aimlessly past the incredible number of displays. Not all were poses of action upon a battlefield, and some were of women and even children - lined up to be shot, hung, drowned, or otherwise disposed of - but each defiant and unrepentant. Not all were easily seen, such as the one plinth bound by angry pulsing energies whose contents would require breaking the imposed seal to view.

And there in the middle, distinct from the rest, a solitary wing dripped hot blood of fire from steaming feathers floating above a rock scorched and stained from the impacts of those flames.

“Do you see it?” asked a voice. “Does your vision encompass the glory of these monuments?”

I turned slowly to pretend I hadn’t been startled. Behind me an angel had approached with perfect stealth, and they hadn’t come by foot or wing.

They sat instead upon a wheelchair.

Below a short azure tunic, thick bandages covered knees and marked where calves and feet should have further extended. From his back spilled an ivory canvas curved by polished bone, yet where wings should have brushed the ground they too fell short, the leather upon them ripped and jagged. Silver hair sank long against a cheek, though in the breeze still blowing wet across the plateau, the rustled strands revealed a face half-destroyed by fire’s kiss. The visible side held incredible beauty, deadly and sharp lines creasing cheeks once touched and molded by perfection’s grace.

Ignoring my obvious shock at his condition, the angel spoke again. “Many who have visited fail to appreciate their artistry.”

“You’re Asmodeus.”

“Was. I was Asmodeus. What I am now remains to be seen.” Hands rested upon a lap.

“Barakiel did not mention your…wounds.”

“I bore but the one when last I met with that particular Grigori.” He gestured towards the ruin of the covered side of his skull and its empty socket. “The gift bestowed upon me by the glorious Butcher from crossing blades in pursuits of our holy aims. A gift now properly balanced upon his own features - for is it not written, ‘An eye for an eye’?”

“Barakiel failed to mention that either.”

“That one has yet to believe in anything of worth, and thus his feet stand not on stone but sinking sand. But you…let us look at you.”

Pushing the metal-spoked wheels forward, he made a slow circuit around where I stood, examining from all angles like a sculptor appraising a block of uncut marble’s suitableness for their next project.

I too examined him in return. To deeper sight, his pattern was…well, it was as if the words comprising his existence had been abruptly sheered. Flashes continuously flared at the edges, only to fall away and go forever dark.

“Your spirit,” I said slowly. “Your Name…” The tongue tied itself, unable to express properly the horror of his condition.

“Yes. I am dying. Piece by piece, spark by spark, and inevitable.” He spun the wheels to face me straight again. “But that is not important.”

“How is that not-”

“Because!!” The mask of calm cracked abruptly as the fairer side of the face twisted as if to match its destroyed twin. “What matters is my question! Do you see it, Amariel of the Light? Do you understand the truths gathered within these pearls held so dear within my garden?!”

I took a step back. “Truths? You’ve gathered death upon death.”

“No!!” If he could have risen he would have, but instead he caught himself pushing uselessly against the chair’s arms before forcing away the gathered tension from shoulders and clenched fingers. Exhaling and sinking back, barely louder than a whisper he pleaded, “You must see it. You must…”

Torn from the desperation within the plea, I gazed again at all that surrounded us.

What was I missing?

Such slaughter, such pain, but what did they have in common? The only thing standing out was their steadfastness in the face of death. “They died ready and willing.”

“Yes. Yes!!” Asmodeus sat up straighter in the chair. “But why??”

Comprehension began to unfold, and the thread binding them into similarity became clear. “Purpose. They willingly died for a purpose.”

He nodded emphatically, the single silver eye aglow. “Not just die, they fought - each in their own way. But there is more! What else do you see?! Regale me with your insight, daughter of he whose eyes of gold saw all!!”

I attempted to go deeper. These souls and demons, whether on Earth or within the individual bubbles surrounding the smaller center where we currently stood, had each struggled not to preserve themselves or even their comrades.

No, they’d willingly sacrificed their lives for something else.

For an idea.

The plateau spun as thousands - if not millions - of visions coalesced into comprehension.

“Fanaticism,” I breathed. “They believed, wholeheartedly and without reservation, in a cause they deemed more important than themselves.”

Asmodeus, eye closed yet joining in the vision I’d finally encompassed, inhaled. “Fanatics, yes, perhaps. But all, each and every one, consumed by faith.”

“Faith?? Here are those who died for communism, or for atheism, even for the ideas underlying bigotry and hatred!”

He waved off the objection. “Religion comes in many flavors. And these - these shining pearls - sacrificed themselves, in glorious blood and effluence, upon the altars of their chosen cause. Etching their unique beauty upon Creation!”

Recoiling in horror, the images shook away. “And how many others were slaughtered for those causes? How much pain resulted?!”

The eyeless socket and its active opposite regarded me. “Is freedom not worth fighting for? Is security? Or uniformity? I care not of the judgments, that is not my department!” He pointed towards Camael’s hovering crimson wing. “What about a belief in the eventual rightness of Creation’s plan?”

“You,” I stuttered, “You fought against it.”

“I fought against a stability without purpose! Against the flaws revealed to Lord Samael, against the generation of a future not worth sacrificing for, not worth spitting one’s last breath and essence into the teeth of its opposition.” With respect if not outright adoration, Asmodeus reached out to touch the bottom tip of one of Camael’s flaming feathers. “This one, there upon that battlefield, he saw something of true worth within the Light. My purpose, my reason for being, quivered with the flames of resonance from his defiance to our warchief when those blades of fury and fire crossed and clashed! And when he and I eventually struggled direct, sword to sword, will to will, he bested me. Me!! Do you comprehend what that means?!”

“Tell me.”

That half-shattered gaze held me fixed. “That we were right! That our Rebellion was necessary!”

“How could your defeat possibly mean that?!”

“Because by our acts was he forged. Every drop of our precious blood to his flaming sword’s swing a glorious hammer to the anvil of Camael’s essence - without us, without the war, he never would have achieved his ascension!!”

Thoughts flashed upon another Monument, far away from Asmodeus’ garden, hidden in sorrow underneath Gabriel’s mountains and forests. “So many perished! So much pain and terrible loss-”

“Think!!” he shouted, a snarl curling his lip. “Prince Camael filled with a greater purpose, perhaps the greatest ever touched. And this glory has driven him ever since! Through battles against sureties of defeat yet emergent in victory. And now I too tie myself to that Purpose, its purest of flames granting the strength to fend off, even if temporarily, my eventual destruction with every measured breath!”

“What are you saying?”

He smiled then, a too-wide flash of shining white teeth. “Long have I had to contemplate after the war’s end. Much have we debated, abandoned as we have been to these realms. And then just as Samael shocked us with unthinkable abdication, you appeared at the Conclave - only to immediately go forth and rescue Beliel’s retreat. Now here you are, returned once more - your existence validates all!”

“That’s insane.”

“Of course!” He laughed, a tortured and awful laugh below the half-ruined face. “We all are mad down here, as must those Above also be. Because in all spaces between, the balance is laid to waste.”

“What balance is there between those who would slaughter their brothers instead of working out their differences in harmony?!”

“What indeed. Untempered ideals, blind purpose, this is not how Creation was meant to be.” He spun the wheelchair about and threw arms aside to encompass all his ‘pearls’. “In the Beginning, when the First beheld a vision greater than the sums of all our parts, when he saw beyond the need for selfish survival - then was I, Asmodeus, created. But I was not meant to serve my purpose alone! DO YOU SEE?!”

Gaping at the twisted and broken angel, thoughts collided within my skull. “Being cut off from Elohim, it did more than just isolate. It…it untethered you. All of you.”

“When one ideal is taken too far in the exclusion of all others, where oh where must this lead?”

The answer was sadly obvious. “To destruction and ruin.”

He sank deeper in the chair, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths from the immense strain of the burst of exuberance - though passion still lit the fire within the remaining eye. “Then, Oh Wielder of Light, ponder the plights of all. Be they Above or Below!”

I had to ask again. Despite not yet processing all he had just said, I had to. “What happened to you, Asmodeus? Please. I must know.”

He spoke, now more slowly between each recovering inhalation. “Your recent enemy. With Beliel’s mace, his actions stirred the denizens that exist within and beyond the infinite sliver between Creation and Abyss. Several of her children awoke.”

“Her?”

“She is Nameless, lurking within the depths of the Chaos at the threshold of where Abyss eats away at all. But we, we call her Leviathan. She who almost destroyed us at the Forging when I too came to be.”

“And her children, they did this to you?”

He raised a solitary finger. “Not they. Only one. Three invaded past our boundary. One destroyed by me, one fleeing still before Beelzebub and his swirling Flies, and one more hidden - hunted now by Lilith and your Nathanael. But understand - they are only the beginning of what shall come. For as they stir, so shall she.” A sinister grin spread below the scars. “I wonder, oh I wonder - will there be enough of us remaining to hold against her wrath? Will we stand strong in glorious united purpose or fail at last? For her children are but the smallest of fragments cast off from the unfathomable whole.”

I gaped at the awful damage to his pattern. This wasn’t like what I had beheld within Yomyael, for Asmodeus wasn’t infected. All traces of the Chaos had been cleansed - or, looking closer, trimmed away by an expert’s scalpel and serrated saw, tools which had removed limbs and essence to prevent infection’s spread. All of which had left him as being at most half of what he’d been. So much was lost, I wasn’t sure there was enough remaining to work a restoration - even if fully inspired within the shining Light.

Even if he could open his heart to its majesty in full.

The fallen angel clearly had been no weakling, even now in this damaged state he burned with residual power. I’d seen minor entities of Chaos at the gates of Hell, those hadn’t worried the Powers I had called against them. But if only a tiny shard of Leviathan could do this to Asmodeus…dear God. What would their mother do to an archangel? Could even Michael’s incredible might stand against such?

What would she do to everyone? To everything?

“Which brings us,” he said with a lopsided smile, “to our negotiation.”

“Our what?” Head spinning, it was a struggle to refocus.

“The reason you are here. The reason I knew you must come. You wish the burning wing of Heaven’s champion, the third-most treasured prize of this collection. Do you not?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Then I offer it to you - provided you take with it one additional gift.”

Suddenly uneasy, I asked, “Which is?”

With a gesture, an item appeared in his grasp which he then held out as sacred offering.

It was gold.

It was unadorned.

It was forged as a simple circle.

“Archon and Archangel Amariel, daughter of Helel the Lightbringer, she who is named Conquest in these End of Days - I ask of thee to take the crown of your father. I ask of thee to save our realms and people.” He inhaled deeply and added:

“I ask of thee to rule over Hell.”

 

End of Part Three

 

 

Thanks for reading...and especially for commenting!

- Erisian