Kakabel’s eyes narrowed in resolve. “Of course. You can rely on me.”
“But you were the best of us,” said Azazel softly.
His disappointment in me burned hotter than any flame. “Tell Michael …” I began, my tongue thick. “Tell him I’m sorry.”
Azazel’s face hardened. “You can explain this all to him yourself. I’m bringing you back with me, Sariel. I’ll help you. It’s not too late.”
His concern touched me but his words were hollow. They sounded too much like my own when I had spoken with Requel not so very long ago on this very sphere. How could Azazel help me when he couldn’t understand my plight? Did I sound as self righteous when I offered my help to Requel? She tried to make me understand, she even invited me into her mind, but I didn’t listen.
“It’s too late for me, brother.” I turned to Kakabel. “Take care of her.”
“I swear it,” she said.
With the last of my strength, I rolled off the ledge and plunged below.
* * *
I plummeted downward, tumbling into snow drifts and slamming into rocky shelves for what seemed like an eternity. Despite the sharp cracks against stone and the twirling horizon, my head began to clear. The burning sensation in my limbs lessened. With a grunt, I unfolded my wings, the cold air lifting me up. My right wing protested, a sharp pain running along its length and into my back, but it held and I slowly glided away from Riswan.
Spots of light still danced before my eyes but the worst of my nausea and aches subsided. I descended in wide circular arcs, the crisp air invigorating me and I breathed in deeply.
My head cleared and I checked to ensure I still had my gear. My sword hung at my waist and my shield pressed against my back beneath my fluttering cloak. I had retained even my helmet, the leather strap beneath my chin held it in place.
But where to now?
I needed rest, my aching and exhausted body screamed for it. I could go to the ninth to Iobel’s camp. The thought appealed to me greatly followed instantly by an overwhelming guilt. How could I rest until I found my son?
But where could I even begin to look? Requel was gone. As far as I knew, she alone knew his whereabouts. It all seemed so hopeless…
Think! I berated myself, frustrated.
Exhaling slowly, I concentrated on nothing save the warm sun on my back, the bracing air in my face, the smells of pine and fresh fallen snow stimulating my senses as I circled lazily downwards. I let my mind drift, relax.
Think, I told myself far more calmly. Reason it through.
Someone had to know where my son was. And that someone … was Requel. A thought struck me. She wasn’t dead, souls can’t die, yet I had been mourning her loss as if she had permanently passed away. No, she went somewhere. I needed to find her, rescue her if possible no matter what it took. And if I found Requel, then I would find my son.
The thought lifted me and energized me. It gave me a sense of purpose. So where do I look for her?
She may have returned to any sphere, perhaps as a wingless. I tensed at the thought and deeply disturbed by it. Even if I did find her as a wingless, would she even remember her son…or even me? The wingless suffered from memory loss.
One problem at a time, I told myself. Find Requel first.
So how do I find her? My brothers and sisters in the Causal may be able to find her, given time, but my last attempt to communicate with them almost destroyed me. Even if I could reach them, how would they track her down? They would run into the same problems hampering me. Michael may be able to sense her through his intuitive wisdom and track her to a specific sphere but I doubt even he would know where in that sphere precisely. Gabriel would simply talk to Raphael and ask for his assistance…
I licked my lips, excitement bubbling within me. Raphael kept records, vast halls of records, in his seminary. The information was not current but Raphael could reference sources of knowledge on any topic, on any subject that had occurred in the distant past. I had visited him there many times.
He once told me that his records weren’t originals, merely ethereal copies transcribed into words and documents by the wisdom of his scholarly students. The source of the records that his students divined onto paper weren’t documents at all. And they could only be accessed through Raphael’s seminary or at the source itself …
My eyes widened. A moment of clarity struck me. Of course. The Akashic Halls on the fourth sphere. The hallowed libraries where all events and actions ever created were captured in the ethereal imprint of the cosmos.
I had never been there. Historical studies never interested me. Even if it did, I wouldn’t have bothered. No one dared enter the Akashic Halls. It was considered God’s diary and was written in a language only an enlightened few could understand. Those that tried to divulge information without God’s consent went mad and spent centuries in seclusion before returning to any semblance of normalcy.
Of the Archangels, only Raphael had been given special permission to interpret the Akashic properly and he passed that knowledge, in part, to his students. His students then transcribed the main events into documents but those events were not current, sometimes decades old, but that was often how long it took to record information. There was just too much. The documents were then catalogued and stored in Raphael’s seminary.
But Raphael’s seminary wouldn’t do for my purposes. No, I needed current information from the source.
It was time I visited the Akashic Halls.
PART II
HELL
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I slid into a dark archway partially hidden by an overturned cart and ducked into the shadows. Hard footsteps and cries of terror raced up the cobbled street towards me. I peered intently, seeing only vague shapes, and silently cursed the never-ending twilight of the fourth sphere. The stench of vomit and rotting animals rankled and I covered my nose against the stink of it.
An assorted mob sped past and it still amazed me to look upon them. Some shambled as if their legs were of different lengths while others moved at ferocious speeds. Most ran on two legs while a few used their hands to help propel them along like apes. They darted through the ruins and over slabs of stone obstructions blocking the road, ducking into holes and scrambling over broken walls.
They were wingless, of that I had no doubt. Beyond that I couldn’t even begin to fathom what they were.
In the past five weeks since arriving in the fourth sphere searching for the Akashic Halls I had witnessed some peculiar sights and this was no exception. From above, I had seen groups of wingless toiling in work camps, clearing away rubble from roadways, scavenging for trinkets before piling them into carts, and hunting for small vermin to use as food. Their fallen masters hovered ever near them with a ready whip.
But these wingless loping before me were different from those found in Iobel’s camp or in Mephistopheles’ domain. These creatures were misshapen, abnormal. They came in an assortment of shapes and sizes, a veritable medley of beasts. They did have one thing in common, however. They fled, terrified, from the fallen who pursued them.
The fallen closed in on them, their bat-like wings fluttering as they skimmed low across the ground, torches held aloft, shouting to coordinate their movements. Several tossed weighted nets expertly on the dashing creatures. Those caught within them shrieked and spilled to the ground, clawing vainly at the mesh prison, before fallen swooped down and beat them with clubs. Other fallen tackled fleeing creatures to the cobbled stone, pinning them and tying them with cord. Those captured were immediately lifted and carried away while still others continued the pursuit.
I waited until the streets cleared before I moved from the shadows. I kept to the edge of the road, ready to find cover should another pack of creatures come bounding my way.
I shook my head at what this place had become. The fourth sphere had changed beyond my imagining. I had feared the worst but nothing could have prepared me for this insanity.
The fourth sphere was
essentially a city as vast as the ocean and as high as the tallest mountain, but it was a city unlike any other. It had once been the peak of angelic civilization, a mecca of angelic culture and arts, a place of wonderment to the senses and a joy to the intellect. The fourth was a place of beauty and elegant grace. Anything could be found in the fourth since it was the most populated of the lower spheres. And most of the city floated.
Entire districts of the city were built on enormous discus-like foundations of stone that hovered in the air in staggered tiers. From afar, the tiered city districts hung in the sky, suspended gently atop and around each other like carefully placed blocks that rose to the heavens.
Upon closer inspection, each tier resembled a palace in the clouds complete with shining white towers, lush hanging gardens, and pristine waterfalls that cascaded from one tier down to another. Each district contained a different community, complete with its own unique architecture, song, dance, art, food, and drink. The fourth was a collection of different cultures, like different facets of the same gemstone.
There was no sense of isolation in any district on the fourth. All angelic orders were welcome on any tier, and angels often visited other districts; their wings spread as they rode on thermal winds.
Roadways along aquiline and sparkling bridges ascended to the multi-level districts of the city and acted as tethers, anchoring the different regions together as well as to the ground and to mountain sides. The bridges radiated with glowing crystal lamps like sparkling dewdrops on a spider’s web on an early summer morn.
But that was before the war.
Since then, all the magnificent tiers had crashed to the ground like so many clay pots dropped from a high window ledge. Entire districts fell on one another, shattering and breaking. The city, if it could still be called such, was a splintered and twisted shadow of its former glory.
Streets had turned into ditches and tunnels; the great monuments of old, like the Ascending Arches of Yahweh and the Temples of the East, had disappeared entirely. Worst of all, the ruins blended together in a craggy, endless landscape of rubble cast in a dreary endless twilight.
A shout snapped me out of my reverie. I ducked low into the shadow of a broken wall until the sounds had receded. Carefully, I treaded my way slowly along the avenues, searching intently for street signs among the rubble or a recognizable landmark to give me my bearings. I almost tried opening a portal to the Akashic Halls, or even somewhere nearby, but stopped myself. The previous hundred times had failed, there was no reason to expect it to work now. It was as if the Halls were shielded. I believed they were.
I automatically reached out with my intuition again, searching for the astral presence of the Akashic Halls. As before, I felt nothing – except frustration. I’ve noticed my spiritual abilities lessen by noticeable degrees. My intuition failed me often, becoming unreliable, especially in those times when I needed it most. My once prodigious strength waned and required great exertion on my part to perform a task that would have otherwise been trivial. Most worrisome of all was the weakening of my mastery over creation, the ability to materialize and manipulate the world around me at will. That ability faded, to what extent I did not know, and I was afraid to find out.
That was why I hid in the shadows these days. It was far easier than discovering how crippled I had become.
I blamed the corruption in this sphere for my decline…the negative energies and heavy vibrations permeating this sphere both constricted and suffocated me. The constant doubts creeping into my mind didn’t help either as they continually sabotaged my own efforts.
Fatigue also played a part, I was sure. After all I had not rested in days and I had eaten even less. Regardless of the reasons why, each day spent in this sphere drained me. And the pillars of my faith crumbled.
I stopped in the middle of a clearing. It looked like it had been recently excavated and looted. Had this been a market? Perhaps a courtyard to a fine manor? I recognized nothing. My frustration increased and I inhaled deeply, letting my irritation pass.
Although I had no idea where the Akashic Halls were, it must be in this general vicinity I reasoned. It had taken me weeks to hone in on my current position. The district that contained the Akashic Halls must have fallen in this local area, I was sure of it.
I thought once again about taking to the sky and searching from above but quickly dismissed the idea. Flying over the mutilated city accomplished nothing; the decimated ruins all blended together in a mass of endless rubble. I discovered the futility of that early on.
The only real progress I had made was to search for evidence of my bearings among the ruins by visiting cleared areas, looking for street signs and other markings to give me indications of my general location. By doing this in a radial area, I was able to systematically determine my location and angle my way closer to the Akashic Halls. My memory of the city was detailed enough where I could take advantage of my bearings to work myself ever closer to my destination. It was a slow process and it had taken me weeks to get this far.
But I was close. I had to be.
I continued my tedious search, traveling down alleys, pushing aside chunks of stone, looking for signs of my whereabouts. After many long hours, my patience all but fled, I pulled free a street sign from beneath a collapsed wall. It read, Grand Heraldic Boulevard.
My shoulders slumped in defeat. I sunk heavily on the ground, my head bowed. The Grand Heraldic Boulevard housed some of the greatest amphitheaters and playhouses in the fourth sphere. Many a contest of skill was held here. Only the greatest poets and bards were allowed to perform there.
I cursed them all and tossed the sign away, disgusted. This location was at least a thousand miles away from the Akashic Halls.
When the tiers fell, I had presumed they fell straight down. What if they had been flung about and scattered instead, like debris in a dust storm? What if they had sailed hundreds of miles before crashing down? Any previous references about the locations of the tiers would be useless.
I sat there for a long while, picking up loose stones and flinging them randomly. It was no use. I couldn’t do this anymore.
I needed a guide.
* * *
“You there, what are you doing here?” a gruff voice asked me.
I approached three fallen, the remaining few from the search party that had passed me by hours earlier when I hid within the archway. The time for hiding and skulking was over.
The leader, a swarthy figure with a dented helmet and scarred forehead, held out a rusted sword and pointed it at me. Two others stood behind him, their faces bearded and grim as they pinned four creatures to the ground with weighted nets. The trapped beasts looked terrified, the whites of their eyes wide, their pupils small. One of the fallen pressed a club against the back of a moaning creature.
I raised my hands disarmingly. “I need directions.”
The leader guffawed, the left side of his face damaged and unmoving. “You lost? Looks like you’re more of a deserter to me. There’s a reward for deserters. What’s the going price, Flemiel?”
The fallen with his club in the creature’s back grinned. “A gold piece.”
“A gold piece won’t buy much but it’ll buy me a flagon of wine from your hide.” The leader approached, still half-grinning.
“Think carefully on this.” My voice was low, dangerous. “All I ask is for some directions and I’ll be on my way.”
The leader lunged. I stepped into his reach. Grabbing his wrist, I snapped his arm at the elbow. The fallen howled. He pulled a knife with his free hand and aimed a blow at my stomach. I backhanded him across the face. His neck snapped like a broken twig and he flew twenty paces before smashing into a wall.
The other two fallen charged, one swung madly with his club and the other pulled free his sword. I ducked beneath the wild club swing and leapt, smashing my rising knee into his face. He crumpled, his head crushed. The second lunged with his sword. I batted it away and drove my fist into his jaw. It sh
attered. He spun and fell in a heap.
I stood there, my heart racing. It felt good to know that my strength was still with me, at least for the moment.
“Please,” said one of the creatures. “Don’t harm us!”
Moving over to the captured creatures, I reached down and ripped free the net. Two of the beasts immediately fled. One lay unconscious. The one who spoke stared up at me, its arms shielding its head as it crouched.
The creature’s skin appeared grey but I couldn’t tell if it was dust, grime, or its natural coloration. Its mouth held crooked teeth, pointing out at odd angles. Behind its small ears fell tufts of hair fell down from an otherwise bald head. The oddest feature was a tail that coiled around one of its legs.
“Please master, don’t hurt me,” whimpered the creature.
“I’m not your master and I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk. Please, sit,” I said, gesturing to a stone slab nearby. The creature scurried over to it but did not sit, merely stared.
“Are you injured?” I asked.
It shook its head. “Why are you helping me?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“You speak strangely. Not like the others.”
“Are you hungry?” I pulled free a wedge of bread from a satchel at my waist and tossed it over. “I’d offer you some water but I’m afraid I’m out at the moment. My name is Sariel.”
The creature scooped it up and devoured it, then licked the tips of its fingers. “I am Ebriel.”
I stared curiously at the creature. Ebriel was an angelic name. Through my sporadic intuition, I sensed that this creature was not a creature at all, but a soul trapped in a creature’s body. I nodded. “How long have you been here, Ebriel?”
“Very long time.” His tail uncoiled as his voice grew steady. “Years.”
“How many?” He held up his hands and flashed them three times. “Thirty years?”
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