by Jorge Silva
In the vision generated by the staff, Gabriel saw the doors to the Throne Room open, and from them flew thousands of angels, each one ready to obey the missions that He assigned them.
Once the last of the angels had gone, the doors remained open. In Raphael’s staff he saw Azrael walk in, raise his hooded head, and prepare himself for His judgment. He walked into the Throne Room without looking back.
14
Before Tiberias could continue with his story, the walls and the cubes shook violently.
Raphael’s images disappeared as soon as he lifted his staff from the floor. He got to his feet and grabbed it with both hands, pointing it upwards.
Gabriel managed to cover himself with his wings just before the ceiling of the room collapsed and, along with the thousands of rocks that fell, he could make out a dozen angels flying towards them.
“They’re angels from Uriel’s legion,” explained Raphael, while batting the largest rocks away with his staff to prevent them from falling on top of them. “Go get Azrael.”
Tiberias grabbed Gabriel by the arm to run. “Don’t worry about Raphael. An archangel can best hundreds of angels.”
They went through the hallways of the labyrinth while angels from Raphael’s legion flew in the direction of the chamber to assist their leader.
When they got to Azrael, he was already sitting up on the stone slab.
“Where is Raphael?” he asked.
“Fighting angels,” Tiberias replied.
Azrael tried to rise, but he hadn’t recovered enough of his strength. Before he could fall, Tiberias picked him up and ran towards the exit. Through hallways that went upwards, little by little they ascended, stopping abruptly when they reached the outside.
Close to a hundred angels, with their spears all pointing forward, were waiting for them. But that wasn’t what worried Gabriel most.
In front of them all was Uriel, with her rapier in her right hand. Even though she still had her eyes closed, he felt that she was looking at him in silent judgement.
“Raphael was clever, building a lair which no light could reach,” said Uriel.
Tiberias placed Azrael carefully on the ground, and Gabriel saw as a spear appeared in his hands.
“I told you that the Phoenix has to choose between Light and Death. I allowed you to read how he betrayed you.” Uriel pointed at Azrael, now on his hands and knees. “I showed you the beauty of Heaven. I explained to you how to achieve an existence without pain. All you would have to do is follow His Word.” Uriel sighed, shaking her head from side to side. “I lament your decision.”
Gabriel felt that Uriel was sincere, she really was sad. What she couldn’t know was that he hadn’t made a decision yet. In fact, he didn’t even know what choosing Death’s side truly meant. He’d never been able to ask Azrael. But what else could she think? Certainly he wouldn’t just voluntarily submit to Oblivion.
The angels rested the ends of their spears against the ground, leaving their sharpened tips pointed upwards.
A light began to emanate from Uriel. Gabriel could distinguish almost nothing apart from that shining figure.
“But first, I’m going to finish what I started.”
In one swift movement the Archangel of Light leapt with her rapier pointed at Azrael. A sword, brilliant in its whiteness, stopped the rapier millimeters from the neck of the Archangel of Death.
It hadn’t been necessary to remove his humanity for him to invoke his sword after all. It had been enough that he needed to protect someone, someone defenseless. Uriel took a step backwards, her rapier now pointed at Gabriel.
“Why do you continue to disobey His Word?” she seethed.
“I don’t even know what it is!” shouted Gabriel.
But even though he hadn’t discovered what God had dictated to His archangels, even though his human soul still made it impossible for him to hear His Word, he knew very well why he had stopped Uriel. Just as eons ago the Archangel Gabriel had stopped Michael when he was going to attack a weakened Lucifer, he had considered it his duty to protect Azrael.
He stepped between Uriel and the Archangel of Death. He had hardly used a sword, but he felt sure of his ability to fight with it. He only needed to listen to the Phoenix.
Nonetheless, the speed with which Uriel attacked with her rapier was impressive, and a few times Gabriel thought that he was done for. It was impossible for him to move fast enough to turn on the offensive, but perhaps he didn’t need to.
Gabriel made his sword disappear, and he extended his arms and wings out to both sides.
The next attack from Uriel was blocked by an invisible wall. Gabriel had generated an imperceptible sphere that protected them from the attacks of the archangel. Uriel expanded her Light, so much that many of the angels around her had to close their eyes, but her next attacks were rejected as well, time and again.
Tiberias picked up Azrael again and stayed close to Gabriel who, without knowing how, had created the sphere. He had only thought that if the mission of the Phoenix was Mercy, his powers probably weren’t focused on combat, but rather on defense.
“But how? You still aren’t free of your human soul!” Uriel exclaimed.
“Indeed!” Tiberias said with a grin, “Remind me to ask you about that later.”
Gabriel didn’t respond. He was concentrating on maintaining the sphere, thinking again and again about the importance of defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. His eyes, fixed on Uriel, didn’t dare blink.
Raphael appeared behind him, with his slightly smudged tunic the only sign of his battle. Slowly, he moved towards Gabriel’s sphere and crossing through it he was able to benefit from its protection.
Gabriel hadn’t forgotten the reason why he had returned to Purgatory.
“I need someone to go to my world and rescue my body,” Gabriel told Raphael without looking away from Uriel.
With difficulty, Azrael whispered to Tiberias, “Do you remember where it is?”
“Yes. It’s a place that I could never forget,” answered the angel.
In a sudden flash they disappeared, on their way to possess a pair of humans and thus free Gabriel’s body. From what Tiberias had said, Azrael would prefer those that were on the verge of death. Looking ahead of him past Uriel, he imagined the rest of the angels didn’t show that kind of deference to humans.
“How long do we have to fend her off?” he asked Raphael, who was still keeping himself inside the sphere with his hands raised, repairing the cracks that appeared in it after each of Uriel’s strikes.
“I would say a few minutes.”
“They’ll take that little time to rescue my body?”
“Time is relative in each Realm. When a minute passes in Otherworld an hour passes in the Realm of humans. A few minutes here would be hours there, time enough to free your body.”
Uriel ordered all of the angels to attack. As one being, separated into nearly a hundred bodies, they raised their spears and, in a choreography of war, they struck the sphere, their weapons ringing out. Raphael barely managed to restore the cracks, and each time that Uriel’s rapier hit the sphere, Gabriel felt himself weaken.
Gabriel heard a sound behind him, and the angels who attacked his sphere stepped back a few meters. He turned around and saw that the angels of Raphael’s legion had appeared in the exit of his lair, having overcome the attack inside.
Hundreds of angels flung themselves into the air, colliding against their opponents without hesitation, even though in a few moments dozens of them already lay impaled on the ground. Gabriel had the impression of seeing two waves crash against each other, more than individual beings fighting among themselves. He didn’t see bravery in the faces of the celestial hosts, but rather a blind determination to follow His Word. He remembered then that freedom had been a gift from Lucifer to Her children. These angels had no alternative, they weren’t choosing to fight. As rain falls from the sky, as smoke emerges from fire, they were simply doing as they were designed.
&
nbsp; When enough combatants had fallen, Uriel was able to return to attacking the protective sphere, while the angels continued to fight one another. Raphael, now focused solely on restoring the cracks produced by the rapier of the archangel, managed to keep the protection in place.
Gabriel began to calculate how much time had passed since he had said goodbye to his mother. If one minute here was the equivalent of sixty minutes in the Realm of humans, then an hour would be the same as sixty hours. That meant that if he had spent a day in Otherworld his mother had been waiting for him for sixty days.
He thought about how desperate she must be. The last thing she had known had been that he would be spending a few days with Ignacio. Surely she would think that he had been kidnapped, or worse.
Raphael looked at him, his hands over the cracks that formed in the sphere, from the assault by the Archangel of Light.
“Have you forgotten that you are going back to kill her?”
Gabriel remembered what Azrael had told him some time ago.
“Yes, mind reading is one of my powers,” Raphael told him.
“I plan to take her to Hell so that Lucifer can protect her, her and my dad.” Gabriel then remembered the vision that She had shown him. A monstrous being guarded Heaven, a giant animal, a combination of dragon and mountain. He needed to fight against that to free all the human souls from Hell.
Gabriel looked at the angels, attacking fiercely with their spears. He knew their faces well by now. They were all practically identical, obeying the orders of God in perfect unison. What made Tiberias behave so differently?
“Thousands of years living in the human Realm have changed him,” Raphael answered. “He was one of the first angels to possess a human body to carry out a mission. When a member of the celestial hosts does so, he endeavors to remain trapped in flesh for as little time as possible. The contact with matter has a permanent effect on their spirit. In addition, they suffer without the Light of Uriel and they don’t know what to do if they’ve already completed the mission they were assigned. With that lack of purpose they begin to desire, and the passions begin to enter their spirits. Hunger, thirst, tiredness, and other appetites. For reasons only Tiberias fully understands, he decided never to return to Heaven. During thousands of years he went from body to body, when the vessel he wore no longer served him.”
“Have I met Tiberias before?” asked Gabriel. “I mean, did the Phoenix know him?” he clarified. “Before he returned to Heaven and let me dream, he called me ‘friend.’ ”
“Many centuries ago, one of the possessions that Tiberias attempted didn’t work well. The soul of the human resisted and one body was home to two souls. Consequently, it began to act erratically, even speaking The Language at times. The town where the man lived began to call him a demon. At that time, the Phoenix was traveling inside a man whose soul he had merged with inside his mother’s womb. He helped Tiberias. The people thought that he had exorcised the demon, but in reality he had simply helped Tiberias’ soul possess the body of a different human, this time one who would die shortly.
“It was then that he decided to have a name, the first among the angels to do so. Without his own identity he was nothing more than a member of the legions of the celestial hosts, but from that day on he called himself Tiberias, no matter what body he occupied.”
The Archangel of Restoration was silent for a few seconds and looked Gabriel in the eyes.
“It is time for you to return to your body. Azrael and Tiberias have freed you.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“I’m tired of running away. I’m tired of leaving my allies to fight alone.”
Raphael looked at him and he felt that it was Mr. Galen once more who did so. Not only because they shared the same eyes, but because there was something similar in their expression, something he couldn’t identify.
“I hope that the next time we see each other it won’t be necessary to run away. I trust that you’ll make the right decision.”
Gabriel closed his eyes, trying to remember the prison, Tiberias’ corpse hanging and tortured, and his own body chained up. Then he felt his soul prepare to descend to the Realm of humans.
Before he could leave, he opened his eyes once more and saw Uriel attack Raphael, now deprived of the sphere of protection. Around him lay hundreds of angels, unmoving, and with their eyes closed, perhaps forever. An image invaded his mind then: Uriel, standing on a green field, surrounded by men writhing on the ground, each of them with his hands covering his eyes.
He couldn’t think of what that meant now, much less whether or not it was a memory of the Phoenix. He needed to concentrate on the last recollection he had of the Realm of humans. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sound of the rapier against Raphael’s staff.
When he opened his eyes again his soul was once more residing inside of his human body. He was lying down with his now broken chains to one side. Standing next to him there were two men whose faces he didn’t recognize, but one of them carried a flaming sword in his hand.
He tried to sit up, but his body didn’t respond, as if it were numb. He had abandoned his body for many days, and it seemed his muscles had atrophied.
“How can we help you?” one of the men asked him, with eyes as clear blue as the sky. It had to be Tiberias.
A pair of Shadows came running from the other room, but they were quickly run through by Azrael’s flaming sword.
“I need to go look for my mom.”
While little by little he regained control of his body, Gabriel explained Lucifer’s plan, and how he needed to send his mother to Hell so that She could protect her.
Tiberias looked at him, puzzled.
“But if Yahweh orders the Shadows to kill your mother, she would go to Hell anyway.”
Azrael, with his grey eyes unmistakable even though they were in another face, spoke next.
“There are fates much worse than Death.”
They left, in silence, to reach Gabriel’s mother, and neither he nor Tiberias dared to ask the archangel about what he had meant.
15
On the way to his house, Gabriel spoke with Azrael quite a bit more than he was used to. Though Tiberias had lost something of his loquacity after his torture, he still spoke more than anyone that Gabriel had ever known. They spent the majority of the time debating what the Phoenix should do, who he should help.
“I understand Lucifer’s reasoning, but I can’t help but think that sending your mother to Hell might not be the best idea,” Tiberias told him.
Gabriel wasn’t sure either, but he didn’t see another option. In this world his mother wasn’t safe. She could be captured at any moment by the Shadows. He had seen how they had tortured Tiberias and he didn’t want anything like that to happen to his mother. He didn’t know if he could disobey God if she was the one being held captive. He needed to know that she was safe to embark on his attack against Heaven.
Is that what he had decided to do? To help Lucifer with Her rebellion? To take all of the tormented souls to Otherworld?
When his father had died, Gabriel had thought he would never see him again, that there was no other life beyond death. When, a few days ago, he had learned that indeed there was, his sorrow was even worse than before. All of the dead went to Hell.
But he carried the Phoenix, he could save his father. Uriel had told him that if he obeyed His Word he could take his parents to Heaven, free of all pain and suffering.
But what about the rest of the humans? What about those in Hell? Did they not deserve the same? But, if he helped Lucifer that would mean fighting against the celestial hosts, against God, who he didn’t even know. In fact, until recently he hadn’t even believed He existed.
He looked at Azrael, Archangel of Death.
“What do you think I should do?”
“I have been wrong so many times over the course of my existence,” he replied, “that I prefer to leave the decision to you. My mission is Death. I’m no longer the best
judge to decide what is good for Creation.”
Yes, that had been Azrael’s stance from the start; that Gabriel choose freely. But there was one question that he could ask that might help him decide.
“What happened when you returned to Heaven, after you let Lucifer escape with Gabriel?”
Azrael sighed. It was a gesture that Gabriel had learned to recognize even though the archangel was now wearing a different body. Azrael did it when he didn’t wish to speak but knew that he would have to.
“I went through the doors to the Throne Room, after Yahweh had already severed Michael’s soul to establish the walls of Order and the celestial hosts. I supposed that He wouldn’t be as merciful with me.
“He asked about my reasons for stopping Michael’s attack. I explained that I couldn’t allow him to eliminate Gabriel and thus leave Creation without Mercy. If I understood one thing about how He thought, it was that when He devised the Seven, each of the missions was essential to carrying out His Word. Even so, He had already lost Justice when He changed my mission to Death and now Obedience no longer existed.
“He commanded me to go to Paradise, and to bring back Gabriel. I had only one chance, and He would wait for my return to establish the walls of Order. Then Paradise would be forever closed. Nothing and no one would be able to leave there. However, before Order, the Seven could enter the Realm of humans without needing a body.”
“Yes, Tiberias told me how the Seven descended to exterminate the humans,” Gabriel told him, without hiding his rage regarding that subject.
“It’s true,” said Azrael, looking askance at Tiberias. “But before Yahweh commanded us to eliminate the children of Lucifer, we visited them for other reasons. Sometimes related to carrying out His Word, sometimes not, but to enter Paradise we needed Lucifer’s permission.
“As you read in the Library, She allowed me to see Gabriel. When I got to his room, he didn’t have to tell me that he was in love. Even though I didn’t expect it from an archangel, his feelings were undeniable. I couldn’t conceive of how one of the Seven could feel something so human, and even today I still don’t understand it. The only thing that I knew is that I couldn’t allow him to stay in Paradise because if I did, the rest of the Realms would no longer have Mercy.