Sacrifice: 2nd Edition

by Jorge Silva

  The Archangel of Light crouched down then, as the fire from Azrael’s sword passed over her head, making the air hiss. A lock of her golden hair fell onto the white grass.

  Gabriel expanded his wings in a single move to stand up, as he summoned his sword and grasped it in both hands. With all his strength he managed to parry Cerviel’s hammer just before it hit him.

  Once again he found himself back to back with Azrael; he facing off against Cerviel and Azrael looking fixedly at Uriel.

  Gabriel noticed that Azrael now carried his sword in his left hand, the one that he normally had covered in fire. His right arm hung unmoving, apparently fractured after blocking the terrible attack of Cerviel’s hammer.

  “Any advice?” Gabriel asked him, panting with effort.

  “Yes,” replied Azrael, looking at his arm. “Don’t let him hit you.”

  Gabriel continued to surround himself with his sphere of protection as Cerviel raised his enormous hammer to hit him once more. He supposed that if the Archangel of Dominion scored enough hits the sphere would break, now that Raphael wasn’t here to repair the cracks.

  The Archangel of Light approached Azrael, with her rapier shining and her wings folded to her back. She remained standing outside the limit of the sphere, waiting. The Archangel of Death couldn’t beat her with one arm incapacitated, so he remained unmoving with his sword still in guard position, within the protection that Gabriel provided.

  The hammer hit the sphere a third time and it shattered, disappearing with a flash of light. Cerviel attacked with all of his strength, but Gabriel moved too quickly for him to strike. The Archangel of Dominion grinned as he brandished his hammer. Gabriel knew that just one hit would be enough to end the fight.

  A cry of pain rent the air. Cerviel paused a moment and Gabriel looked in the direction of the sound. Azrael was pinned by Uriel’s rapier skewering his left arm, anchoring it to the ground.

  Wounds in the Realm of Yahweh appeared similar to the ones in the world of humans, though here it wasn’t bodies that were fighting, but souls. The blade of the rapier appeared to be separating flesh from bone, letting forth a spring of blood that had already dyed the ground red. Yet in reality, it was Azrael’s soul that was torn open, and his screams made it clear how terrible the pain was.

  Leaving the rapier in place, Uriel put her knee on Azrael’s neck.

  “I think it’s time that Cerviel took you to the Throne Room,” she said to Gabriel.

  He made his sword disappear. Cerviel unwound the chain that he carried coiled around his gauntlet and tied Gabriel’s hands.

  Uriel put her foot on top of her rapier, thrusting it up to the hilt into Azrael’s arm. By now he was too exhausted to scream.

  “I know that I can’t grant you death, much as I might like to, but Ramiel helped me think of an alternative,” said the Archangel of Light, while she began to sing with a contralto voice that made the land on which they stood vibrate.

  Little by little the ground began to recede. Uriel continued singing, and the melody caused giant rocks, white as the rest of Purgatory, to appear. Moving her fingers, without needing to touch them, she tore the rocks as though they were paper, covering Azrael’s unmoving body with them. When only his eyes were left uncovered, she moved closer so that he could hear her.

  “You could disappear, go the Realm of mortals and come back. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” she said, smiling. “I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to leave Otherworld while you have a piece of my soul holding you here.”

  Gabriel watched as the Archangel of Death closed his grey eyes. Considering the huge amount of stone that covered his body, he imagined that an injured Azrael wouldn’t be able to leave without help.

  “I’ll miss my rapier,” she said to Cerviel. “But it’s a small price to pay for having finally rid ourselves of Death.” Uriel flew towards Heaven then, leaving her opponent trapped.

  Grabbing him firmly, Cerviel began his ascent to Heaven with Gabriel in complete silence.

  The three archangels were waiting outside the Throne Room when the doors opened and Ramiel came out. It was the first time that Gabriel had seen Ramiel without being tied to a human body. It caught his attention that Ramiel appeared to be a woman, despite the fact that when he had first met her she occupied the body of a man.

  Here in Otherworld she was as pale as a sheet of paper, which made her red hair and eyes stand out even more starkly. Her armor was white, but it didn’t shine at all. Her feathers were sharpened like daggers. But what surprised Gabriel the most was that she appeared to be a teenager, just like him.

  Ramiel looked at her archangel siblings.

  “And Azrael?” she asked.

  “He remains buried in Purgatory with my rapier holding his soul in place. Your plan worked,” replied Uriel.

  Ramiel sighed, shaking her head.

  “This war has cost us too much. We lost Michael and his spear, and now we can’t use the rapier of Light.”

  Cerviel pushed Gabriel forward, indicating he should pass through the doors.

  “It’s your turn.”

  With his hands still chained, Gabriel entered the Throne Room. He crossed the threshold and the enormous doors closed behind him. He looked forward and to either side and he realized that he couldn’t see the walls. The place was so vast that its limits were lost to the horizon.

  When he saw Yahweh, he understood the many things that he had heard, as well as the vision that Lucifer had shown him in Hell. Gabriel was finally witness to the presence of God, descending slowly on His powerful wings.

  His head was like a hill, and in His jaws were hundreds of fangs, each one the size of a man. When He reached the floor, the ground shook and Gabriel realized that it had been truly naive to think that he could have overcome the guardian of Heaven. It didn’t matter how many allies Lucifer managed to call to Her aid.

  He knew that his human mind couldn’t understand what he perceived, and that what he saw was a vain attempt to assimilate something that he couldn’t actually imagine. A dragon was the only thing that he could think of, even though that animal could never come close to the being that he saw before him.

  Gabriel saw images in his head that seemed impossibly more real than anything he had seen in his life. Thanks to those images he understood that Yahweh was the one conferring the visions to him and that He had long desired to have an audience with him.

  As with many humans, Gabriel had imagined many times what he would ask God if one day he were to meet Him. But the figure of Him, a veritable winged mountain, took away all his courage in an instant and he could only produce one word that summarized all his questions.

  “Why?”

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  Yahweh moved one of His talons, gesturing for Gabriel to come closer. Without moving his wings or stepping forward, Gabriel floated into the air towards Him. Apparently, with only His will, the dragon could move the archangel.

  In his mind, Gabriel saw his dog appear, and then he saw himself at Night’s side. Somehow He could communicate directly with the archangel, without needing words. Perhaps using images He could deliver an unambiguous message; He knew the answer to every question before it could be asked. Gabriel understood that there was more distance between an archangel and Him than between a human and his dog. The dragon exhaled and Gabriel felt a gust of wind colder than snow.

  The images in his mind changed, hyperreal in every dimension. The Throne Room disappeared and Gabriel was witness to the origin of Creation. He could see the beginning of the universe when Time and Space were all that existed and in them wandered He and She. He could see how Yahweh asked something of Lucifer, extending His hand in a gesture of supplication.

  The images transformed in his mind as though they were made of liquid. He saw how Lucifer turned Her back to Yahweh and, flying far away from Him, began to form Her Realm elsewhere. At the same time, despite the impossibility of seeing two images at once, suddenly he was also observing how Yahweh seem
ed disheartened by Her answer.

  As though he had been there, he saw the origin of the humans brought into existence thanks to pieces of Lucifer’s soul, exactly as Tiberias had described it.

  In the vision, at the exact moment when She divided Her soul, Yahweh let out a deafening roar. What problem did He have with humans? Was Tiberias right? Was it the ability to create other beings like themselves, something reserved for the Elohim, that bothered Him?

  “Exterminating humanity is the only solution?”

  The effort expended to ask that question and interrupt the torrent of images surprised Gabriel. He saw the dragon’s pupil narrow.

  Gabriel thought about what Uriel had said. How the freedom that Lucifer granted to humans brought suffering to them, and to all of Creation. Uriel believed that She allowed them to ruin their own lives, and those of everyone in Creation, and She had the audacity to call that freedom a gift. To the Archangel of Light it was cruelty. Uriel felt that even the children of Lucifer deserved to be guided by the Elohim.

  He managed to see the dragon snort once, before being inundated with images again. He saw the Phoenix fusing with the soul of a human, when it was no more than an embryo in its mother’s womb, having asked her for permission before the merging. Then he saw a grown man, trying to help the humans avoid suffering. Last, Gabriel saw the man being crucified, after failing in his task.

  Gabriel felt a pain in his wrists as the Phoenix recalled what he had just seen; the agony of being nailed to a cross for so many hours. But the only thing that he could think was that Creation should be free from suffering, without making humanity disappear.

  At that moment, he recalled the scroll that he had in his tunic. With difficulty, he moved his tied hands to retrieve it, and extended the scroll to Yahweh.

  “This scroll is sealed and only God can open it.”

  Yahweh closed His eyes and, moving one of his talons, made the seal on the scroll and the chains around Gabriel’s hands disappear.

  Gabriel began to read the scroll, and so it was that he first learned of It.

  When He and She came into existence, they did so as beings that existed subject to Time and Space. In that moment, at the origin of Creation, they were witnesses to something that existed before them, their opposite, something that wasn’t limited by anything. While Yahweh and Lucifer were, It was not.

  Yet, that didn’t mean that It did not exist. Not existing would mean being limited by being, even if in opposition to it. No, It was beyond that duality. It wasn’t even limited by being.

  The scroll made clear the threat that It posed to Creation. All things that existed did so because they were defined by their limits. The humans by their freedom, the archangels by their missions, the Elohim because they were. Being Yahweh, being Lucifer.

  However, nothing defined It. Wandering the edges of the universe It blurred the lines of distinction. Everything that It permeated with Its presence ceased to exist. Creation was enormous, but It had begun Its work from the very beginning and had never stopped. Invisible because It wasn’t anything, unstoppable because there was nothing to stop, sooner or later It would end everything. Sooner or later, It would win, and Creation would disappear without a trace.

  Yahweh and Lucifer, energy and matter, subjects of the laws of Time and Space, couldn’t do anything against that Void, against the Chaos ungoverned by any law, because It preceded all laws.

  It was the only unlimited thing. Gabriel thought that if a God existed, it wasn’t the dragon that stood before him; it was It. Indefinable. Eternal.

  Azrael had told him that the Phoenix had returned because there existed a threat. Until now, Gabriel had thought that Yahweh was the cause of his return, that He was their enemy, that which represented the ultimate danger for Lucifer and Her children. But, in truth, everything that He had done since His beginning, He had done to try to destroy that which put them all in danger.

  “But what can we do against It?” exclaimed Gabriel. He was sure he hadn’t fully understood the nature of the threat. After all, his mind had limits, and it was impossible for him to understand that which didn’t have them.

  The dragon opened His enormous eyes and new images fell, cascading into Gabriel’s mind.

  Recently emerged in the universe, Yahweh had seen the threat. Since the beginning, It had begun nullifying Creation, eradicating what was. Yahweh had asked Lucifer to rejoin Him, believing that doing so might remove the division that brought them into existence. That by being One again they could fight It.

  The images that Yahweh manifested in Gabriel’s mind allowed him to understand what He had thought. Yahweh knew that by becoming One with Lucifer again They would cease to exist, but He saw no other way to be sure that the Creation that had sprung from them wouldn’t be annihilated by Emptiness. The true meaning of His Word, from the beginning, had been a plea: ‘Let us become One again.’

  Lucifer hadn’t accepted Her counterpart’s plan. She didn’t wish to cease existing. She had emerged from their division with many ideas and dreams.

  Perhaps She thought that sooner or later they would find another solution. Perhaps She thought it worth creating something, even if that something were to end in an uncertain future.

  The dragon closed His enormous eyes and sighed. Gabriel understood Yahweh’s pain and impotence when She had decided to create the humans by dividing Her soul. It would be even more difficult to return to being One now that the soul of his counterpart was fragmented.

  From that moment, if Lucifer united with Yahweh, not only would They disappear, becoming One again, so would the humans, since they were part of Her soul. Gabriel knew Her well enough to know that She would never allow Her children to cease to exist. Now he understood the reason for Yahweh’s wrath towards Lucifer’s children.

  Yahweh didn’t show him any more images, so Gabriel turned back to reading the scroll.

  Yahweh felt Lucifer divide Her soul to create the humans. Resigned, having found no other solution, He did the same, and half of His soul floated before Him as a luminescent sphere.

  From it He would create seven archangels who would help Him to carry out His Word; that they return to being One with Lucifer. Nonetheless, He was afraid that they would also reject His plan if they knew what it would mean. If She hadn’t been willing to cease existing, perhaps His children wouldn’t accept it either.

  He would hide the threat of It from His archangels, except for the oldest of the Seven. No one else would know that before Them reigned Chaos and Emptiness, nor that It was more powerful than Him. No one else would know how fragile this universe truly was. The rest of His children He would simply ask to bring Lucifer to His side, telling them that it was the only way to protect Creation.

  Yahweh, floating in the universe, took one of the pieces of His soul.

  First, He created Raphael, the Archangel of Restoration. He needed to be able to unite the soul of Lucifer with that of the humans, and His own soul with the division He had found Himself obliged to make. Thus the Elohim could return to being One. It was the only way He could imagine confronting the threat of It.

  Raphael then flew to Lucifer’s Realm and he explained that he had been created in order to restore Their souls, and thus He and She would return to being One. But Lucifer didn’t listen to His Word. If She hadn’t wished to sacrifice Her own existence in order to assure the future of a brand new Creation, She was even less willing to do so now that Her children existed.

  Before returning to Yahweh, the archangel walked amongst the humans. He knew that they were free, unlike himself, and that they didn’t have a mission that defined them. Was that the reason for the suffering he saw? He cured the wounds that he found, clearly not produced by the peaceful animals he saw wandering around, and began his return.

  When Yahweh saw that the Archangel of Restoration returned to His side He brought forth a giant disc with a membrane surrounding it. In that way He had created what would eventually become Heaven, the core of Yahweh’s R
ealm. Within that sphere He brought forth an emerald cube so that Raphael might rest.

  He took another piece of His soul and created Michael, Archangel of Obedience, who then flew to the Realm of Lucifer. Michael thought that if he showed the importance of obeying not Yahweh, but rather Her duty as an Elohim, he could convince Her to return. If the only way of protecting Creation was to accompany him, how could She not obey? But Lucifer had come into being before duty existed, and She valued freedom more highly. She wouldn’t sacrifice Herself to follow Yahweh in His plan to end the Chaos that preceded Them.

  Before returning to Yahweh, the archangel walked among the humans. They approached him to cure their wounds, thinking that he had the same mission as Raphael, but instead Michael taught them about duty and obedience. Lucifer knew that Her children would never again be completely free, now that they saw themselves limited by their own thoughts about what they should and should not do. However, their freedom also meant they were free to choose to listen to the son of Yahweh, and She didn’t stop them.

  When Yahweh saw that the Archangel of Obedience returned to His side He brought forth a bronze cube within the sphere so that Michael might rest.

  He took another part of His soul and He created Azrael, Archangel of Justice, who flew to the Realm of Lucifer. There, he tried to convince Her that returning to Him was just. According to what Yahweh had told him, it had been Her decision to flee from His side that was putting Creation at risk. If She were to return to His side, the threat that only They knew of would disappear. Yet Lucifer was not willing to have Her children cease to exist simply because it was just or unjust. She was beyond that. She preceded the idea of Justice.

  This time, it was Lucifer that asked something of the archangel before he returned to Yahweh. Some of Her children were using the gift from their mother, freedom, in order to hurt the others, including taking away the freedom of their siblings.