by Jorge Silva
“Lucifer, still on Her knees, was approached by another of the Seven. This archangel carried a bronze spear, and exclaimed in a voice that I have heard many times before, ‘Your rebellion ends now.’
“His spear never reached Lucifer. A sword blocked it. ‘What are you doing Michael?’ the Archangel Gabriel demanded of him, struggling to push back the spear.
“The rest of the Seven had flown to Lucifer. She was surrounded, ‘Are you also rebelling against His Word?’ said Michael, still trying use his spear to impale Her.
“ ‘He ordered us to exterminate the humans, not Lucifer,’ replied Gabriel.
“Lucifer raised Her swords to guard herself, expecting an attack at any moment. She was truly exhausted, and could do nothing more than that, although Her eyes remained fixed on Michael, fierce and defiant.
“ ‘You’re the Archangel of Mercy, and that clouds your mind. Lucifer created the humans, She is the cause. If we take advantage of this moment of weakness there won’t be any more beings to threaten His Word,’ exclaimed Michael.
“ ‘If Gabriel holds that mission it is by His decree,’ this time it was Raphael who spoke, leaning on his staff. ‘His Word includes Mercy.’
“Cerviel, who was called the Force of Heaven by his siblings, since not even one of the Seven had more sheer strength than him, demanded Gabriel lower his sword. ‘Michael, destroy Her.’
“Lucifer opened Her mouth but nothing came out. She looked into Gabriel’s eyes; without a doubt he hadn’t been prepared for what he felt when She did. No one could be. The Archangel of Mercy stepped between Lucifer and Michael, making it clear that he wouldn’t obey.
“Michael and Gabriel entered a bloody battle, the first between archangels. Even though all of them had been created with a seventh of Yahweh’s soul, they were not equal in all respects. The mission they had each been granted made them different. Very different.
“Gabriel tried to block Michael’s attacks, but his sword wasn’t fast enough. The spear had already injured him in one wing and a leg, causing him to move much slower than his opponent.
“Michael made Gabriel trip over his spear, and once he was on the ground he placed the heel of his bronze boot against the archangel’s throat. He turned to strike the finishing blow to Lucifer. Yahweh had created Michael, Archangel of Obedience, to destroy all those who defied Him. In his mind, those who went against His Word deserved to be annihilated.
“For the second time today, a sword blocked his spear, and his mission. Clearly frustrated, he stepped back to confront his foe. He did not expect to see the Archangel of Death.
“Azrael fought with his weapon in one hand, and fire in the other. He was an opponent worth fearing, and Michael knew it. They could have fought for days without there being a winner.
“Lucifer took advantage of the distraction. She grabbed Gabriel by the hand and, in a flash, they disappeared from the Realm of humans.
“Michael and Azrael stopped fighting and their weapons vanished. The duel was no longer sensible, since the reason they fought was no longer present. Neither of them wished to waste their time.
“Together they left with their remaining siblings and returned to Heaven. Yahweh would determine who of the Seven had correctly followed His Word, and who had rebelled against it. Yahweh would judge them.”
11
Tiberias finished speaking; Gabriel’s heart beat faster after hearing him. As the story had unfolded it seemed more and more to Gabriel as though it were something he’d taken part in. Without doubt the Phoenix within him had experienced all of that when he had still been the Archangel Gabriel.
But it hadn’t been enough. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember Lucifer. As much he wished to see Her face, it was impossible. He looked at Tiberias helplessly.
“It’s too bad. I thought that would be enough.”
His head dropped in a gesture of defeat and exhaustion. It was the first time that Gabriel had seen him that way.
“What about my father? I can remember him, and he’s in Hell.”
“You remember the matter that covered him, not his naked soul. You’d appear in a cemetery,” replied Tiberias, with his chin still leaning against his chest. “Try to sleep. The only hope left to us is that you dream of Her.”
“But couldn’t I disappear from here and appear somewhere else in this world?” asked Gabriel.
Tiberias shook his head. “In this world you’re bound by matter. The chain that ties you to this prison isn’t the real obstacle. It’s your body that has you trapped in this Realm.”
The Shadows returned to the room. With obscured faces they called upon their dark spears and Gabriel struggled against his bonds.
“Don’t worry,” said Tiberias. “He needs the Phoenix to return to Otherworld and take the celestial hosts to fight against Lucifer. It must be in Otherworld that Uriel grants you Oblivion, that way it will be the Archangel Gabriel that remains. If they were to do it here, in the Realm of humans, it would be the human memories that remained, and the Phoenix would cease to exist.”
Gabriel calmed down, if only a little. Unless he decided to return, by his own will, no one could make him. At least, that’s what he thought.
The Shadows began to torture Tiberias; spears pierced his ribs, they placed metal filings underneath his fingernails, and cut him in the more sensitive parts of his human anatomy. His screams were heartrending.
Gabriel wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but they were tied. He couldn’t avoid remembering the last time he had heard someone scream like that. He had been beside his father in the hospital while a nurse carried out one of the many procedures that had made him writhe in pain. He saw the tightened jaw of his father, trying not to groan, not to scream, not to cry. For himself. For his son. But sometimes, for just a second, he didn’t succeed. When his father died, Gabriel carried within himself hundreds of those seconds, each one replete with an agonized, “No more. Please, no more.”
The torture continued, stopping only to avoid pushing the human body Tiberias inhabited beyond what it could take.
One of the Shadows turned to speak to Gabriel. “The Archangel of Dominion sends you the following message: You can stop this. If your mission is truly Mercy, return to the Heptagon.”
Tiberias kept screaming, but Gabriel could hear him mumbling again and again: “Don’t go back. Dream. Don’t go back. Dream.”
But how he could sleep while someone beside him was being tortured?
The angels continued the torment for hours, stopping only to repeat to Gabriel, “Return.” Each time they did Tiberias would say “Dream.”
Gabriel was surprised by Tiberias’ fortitude; he would never have believed that anyone could resist so much pain, but he knew he couldn’t handle seeing much more of his suffering. He had to find a way out.
The Shadows stopped abruptly and left, their human bodies were exhausted from exerting themselves for so long.
“I don’t want to return to Heaven,” Tiberias whispered. “Even I can’t imagine the punishment that awaits me. But you can’t sleep while they do this to me. Even if you could, you won’t dream of anything useful; my screams will only hinder you. You are thinking of going with them, so they will free me, aren’t you?”
Tiberias sighed then, and Gabriel thought that he had never heard so much weariness placed in a single breath.
“It was a pleasure to see you again, my friend.”
When his father had died, Gabriel felt time had stopped around him. The air had gotten slightly colder and, even though he had been in a hospital full of people, everything went eerily quiet as his father departed.
But when Tiberias decided to leave the Realm of humans, a soul overflowing with memories and experiences departed, full of more lives than any to come before or since. Gabriel watched the light bulbs burst and felt the ground shake. A few moments later Tiberias’ body hung limp from the chains.
When the angels returned to see what had happened, they cursed un
der their breath that their prisoner had left his body. They knew that He would consider it disobedience. They opened the shackles and took away the corpse, discussing between them who would consult the Heptagon about how to proceed, hoping that there was some way they might be spared.
Finally in silence, Gabriel was left alone. He supposed that Tiberias, as an inhabitant of Otherworld, hadn’t truly died, but rather had left the last body that he had possessed. Even so his calm was shaken by what he had heard him say. “What punishment had Tiberias been referring to?” wondered Gabriel. Suddenly, after days without sleep, his eyes closed without him even trying.
This was the second time he had dreamed about the Phoenix, the reincarnation of the Archangel Gabriel. The first had been his escape from the Shadows, when he had touched it for the first time. This time, it was about a scene he had read about in Heaven.
He was in a temple covered in vegetation, surrounded by trees that were taller and lusher than any he had ever seen. Each one appeared to offer a fruit more exquisite than the last and he noticed that there were men and women walking around seemingly without a care. As the breeze brushed past him, he noticed that the air smelled of violets and jasmine.
It was a faithful image of the Paradise that he had always imagined. Now he knew what Lucifer had created for Her children, a place of repose after Death had found them.
He looked at his hands and torso and saw that he was wearing white armor. He knew immediately then that in the dream he was the Archangel Gabriel. At his side walked someone who could only be Lucifer.
Even though he had read about Her, and heard Tiberias describe Her beauty, nothing could have prepared him for the reality of it. She wasn’t just the most beautiful being he had ever seen. There was something about Her that exceeded that word, that made Her face, Her eyes, Her body, impossible to describe in any language.
In the dream, as if it were a series of scenes from a movie, he walked with Her. They conversed with each other and with Lucifer’s children. They wandered among the trees that surrounded them; they held each other and gazed at the sky.
But soon the dream showed him the ending that he already knew. Inside the palace, he found himself on the floor of his room with Azrael near him. Azrael had already removed the last of his feathers with his fire. With a pain that he recalled from the time he came in contact with the Phoenix, he saw how his body disappeared, and then he began to see everything from above. First he saw the floor covered with blood and ash. He observed as Lucifer entered the room, as Azrael put one of the archangel’s feathers into Her hand, and then flew away from Paradise. Everything had happened as he had read in the Library.
The dream continued, and he saw how Lucifer fell to Her knees as though Her strength had abandoned Her. She began to cry. As often happens in dreams Gabriel knew, without needing any explanation, that it was the first time that She had ever done so. One of Her tears fell on the feather She was still holding, it immediately left Her hand and floated in the air. Lucifer stepped back in surprise. Where there had been one feather there were now two, four, eight, until a mass of feathers and light floated before Her.
When the light ceased to blind him, Gabriel recognized the figure. It was the Phoenix. It looked the same as it had the first time he had seen it, like an enormous bird, much bigger than he was, with feathers whiter than snow, each one shining almost as intensely as Uriel’s armor.
Lucifer moved closer and put a hand on one of its wings. Even though tears still fell down Her cheeks, She was smiling.
But the calm of the encounter between Lucifer and the Phoenix ended abruptly when giant spheres of fire began to fall from the sky, annihilating everything in their path.
They cut through the firmament leaving a trail of black in their wake. In seconds, thousands of trees were burning like torches, and the men and women watched as their eternal resting place was destroyed forever.
Lucifer looked around, a frantic expression crossing Her face. She began to head for the door, but the Phoenix grabbed Her wrist with its talon and tried to take Her to safety.
“I can’t leave my children here,” said Lucifer, freeing Her arm. “You must go!” She pleaded, but the Phoenix didn’t leave, keeping itself aloft with its giant wings.
“Gabriel, escape, so that you can come back one day. You must find a way to get us all out of here.”
Lucifer flew from the Palace, attempting to protect Her children from the pain of the fire. With Her hands She created caverns that served to protect those who were close enough and, calling forth Her swords, She rose into the firmament to repel the balls of fire.
The Phoenix began its escape, dodging the flames that fell from the sky. In the dream, Gabriel followed him and looked down to see that Paradise was burning, becoming an inferno.
12
Seeing Lucifer once, even if only in a dream, was enough to etch Her on his soul. Using the memory of Her as his beacon, Gabriel could sense how he left behind his chained body. Suddenly able to see it from above, his senses shifted and the human Realm disappeared in a blink. Allowing his soul to fly by abandoning matter, was much easier than it had been the first time.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by fire and gloom. It was like being at the foot of a volcano mid-eruption. He turned his head and noticed that he had recovered his wings. Though in Otherworld he’d had them only a short time, he was happy to feel them again. He understood that, here in Hell, appearance was also determined by the soul, not by matter.
He had arrived to this Realm through to a memory of Lucifer, and it was She who he found a few steps away. She looked at him, bewildered for a few moments. Finally, She smiled.
“I’ve waited for you for so long,” came the words from the most beautiful being that he had ever seen.
Lucifer approached and took one of his hands. She kissed his fingers, and then reached up to touch his wings.
“For thousands and thousands of years, I’ve been waiting for you.”
Gabriel saw that Lucifer’s hands were covered in wounds. The skin of Her fingers was covered by sores, Her fingernails nearly gone. He had seen in his dream how She had tried to protect Her children by digging caves for them, trying to repel the balls of fire that had fallen over them with Her Swords. “How many centuries had She spent doing those very things?” he thought.
Gabriel opened his wings and enveloped Her with them, embracing Her. After a few seconds, She stepped back, Her fists clenched.
“Look at what Yahweh has done to Paradise.”
Gabriel knew the story. It had been Her gift to humanity. A place where humans could hide from Death, where their souls would remain forever, along with all that formed their identity. Lucifer had surrendered half of Her soul for it, sacrificing Her equality with Yahweh. He couldn’t help but be moved by the pain that She must feel to see Her Paradise in ruins.
“I sensed that your return was approaching. You’ve finally come to free us. But how?”
Gabriel told Her what he knew. That the Phoenix could enter and leave the Three Realms even though no one knew why. How in Otherworld Uriel had tried to grant him Oblivion. About what had happened with Tiberias, Azrael, and Raphael.
“The Archangel of Death helped you escape Yahweh?” She asked, incredulous. “It would seem that much has changed in the millennia that I’ve been trapped here.”
“The last time that I saw him he was fighting with Raphael against Cerviel and Uriel. I don’t know what happened after,” Gabriel replied, before bowing his head and saying in a near whisper, “I’m worried that he’s dead.”
“Dead? The Archangel of Death?” said Lucifer with a grin. She moved closer, and Gabriel could see in Her eyes the vestiges of thousands of years of waiting, unshakeable, despite having nothing to sustain that longing. “You have come to free us, haven’t you?”
Gabriel looked around Paradise, once as devoid of pain as Heaven, now turned into Hell by Yahweh.
He still didn’t know what he
should do, what everyone expected of the Phoenix, but he did know one thing; whatever decision he made, there was something he must do first.
“I want to see my father.”
Lucifer looked at him with an expression in her eyes that he could not decipher.
“I had forgotten that the archangel is not the only soul who has returned,” She said, kissing his forehead then taking him by the hand.
Needing no wings to fly, She held tight to Gabriel’s hand as they flew over the ruins of Paradise. Unlike the cold wind of Otherworld, the air here was hot and seemed to stagnate in Gabriel’s lungs, as the ash clouded his vision. He saw tormented souls all over the landscape taking cover in the caverns, which offered small shelter from the fire that fell from the sky and rose from the ground. Even though the souls weren’t tied to matter, they retained their human form, which made it even more difficult to bear what he saw. Children running barefoot through the rubble, men and women frightened and tired from escaping the magma. That they didn’t have bodies didn’t help their situation. It only made it endless.
Even though Hell was vast, the speed at which they flew made their journey short. Lucifer descended and set Her feet down on the rocks, and Gabriel did the same.
He saw the souls get to their knees before Lucifer. She told them to get up, that kneeling was never necessary. Despite being surrounded by pain and fire, Gabriel noticed that it was impossible for them not to smile when they saw Her.
When they saw his shining wings, a look of shock crossed many of their faces. Gabriel thought that it must be the first time they had seen an archangel. He permitted those who were brave enough to touch his wings. Others hid, frightened. Perhaps, knowing that it was God who was responsible for having turned their mother’s gift into this Hell, they mistrusted a member of His Realm.